# Why does MacOS not use the FreeBSD kernel?



## exeter (Dec 5, 2016)

As I understand it the Apple Mac. operating system uses the Mach kernel modified into XNU, but at least some of the FreeBSD userland. Does anyone know why? Or why they don't use the FreeBSD kernel?


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## ANOKNUSA (Dec 5, 2016)

After being fired from Apple, Steve Jobs founded NeXT Computer. The NeXTSTEP operating system ran a BSD userland on top of a Mach kernel. Apple later bought NeXT, which was how Jobs wound up back at Apple. After he was promoted to CEO, it was decided to rewrite MacOS with a Unix base. I can only presume that since Apple already had the NeXTSTEP code at hand, that was a major factor in the decision. FreeBSD had a more readily maintained and up-to-date userland, and NeXTSTEP already contained a lot of the code needed to make that work with a Mach kernel.


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## exeter (Dec 5, 2016)

Yes, I sort-of knew the history. I just wondered why bother reinventing the wheel. What has Mach got that FreeBSD doesn't?


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## drhowarddrfine (Dec 5, 2016)

ANOKNUSA said:


> Apple later bought NeXT, which was how Jobs wound up back at Apple.


I believe it was the other way around. Jobs was hired back and required Apple to buy NeXT or something like that.


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## ANOKNUSA (Dec 5, 2016)

exeter said:


> I just wondered why bother reinventing the wheel.


It's not reinventing the wheel if the code already exists. But even if it didn't, there have been dozens of iterations of Unix in the past forty years, many with their own kernels. As for what Mach has that FreeBSD doesn't, you could probably write a book on that. A very dense and obscure book. 



drhowarddrfine said:


> I believe it was the other way around. Jobs was hired back and required Apple to buy NeXT or something like that.


It seems we both missed the mark a little bit.


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## SirDice (Dec 5, 2016)

exeter said:


> What has Mach got that FreeBSD doesn't?


Mach is a microkernel, FreeBSD has a monolithic kernel. XNU is a hybrid.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microkernel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monolithic_kernel
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hybrid_kernel


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## fnoyanisi (Dec 6, 2016)

macOS is based on Darwin, which includes code from NeXTSTEP + Mach 3 + BSD. I think when Apple acquired NeXT, they had NeXTSTEP on their hands and they simply improved the code with additions from BSD. This could be a design decision done by system designers at that time.

Apple explains the architecture of OS X kernel here.

And if you have time, here is a good reading.


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## BSD-Kitsune (Dec 6, 2016)

exeter said:


> As I understand it the Apple Mac. operating system uses the Mach kernel modified into XNU, but at least some of the FreeBSD userland. Does anyone know why? Or why they don't use the FreeBSD kernel?





exeter said:


> Yes, I sort-of knew the history. I just wondered why bother reinventing the wheel. What has Mach got that FreeBSD doesn't?



Primarily because Steve bought into the benefits of the ukernel, not knowing that Mach is probably the poorest designed microkernel ever. It's relatively secure, actually, but it's slow. It's so slow that a monolithic kernel can easily outperform it on weak hardware by a hookshot (Yes Zelda reference) and while it has plenty of nice features, you need to *write code that takes advantage of these features*. And AFAIK, OSF/1 aka Tru64 didn't follow this (OSF/1 uses Mach) so it's fair to say most Mach-compatible software didn't.

However, modern day XNU is a hybrid kernel, and I don't really have as much of an issue with the architecture of XNU as I do the OS X design philosophy, the way a lot of the userland is handled and that the GUI isn't really better than anything on real UNIX other than its prettiness, which when you come down to it means nothing.

FreeBSD's kernel is good but tbh the OS X to FreeBSD code commonality is probably around 10% - Darwin has most of its code from NEXTSTEP and GNU sources and most of the userland tools for FreeBSD are only superficially similar - HFS+ is an entirely different beast from UFS/FFS2.


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## kpa (Dec 7, 2016)

Apple has been replacing whatever there is left of the GNU utilities in OS X rather aggressively with their own proprietary re-writes of the same utilities. For example take a look at the SAMBA service in the newer versions of OS X, it has nothing in common with the GNU one other than that it implements the same SMB protocol. What's really funny at least to me is that Apple's implementation beats the crap out of the GNU one in terms of compatibility with newer windowses.


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## BSD-Kitsune (Dec 7, 2016)

kpa said:


> Apple has been replacing whatever there is left of the GNU utilities in OS X rather aggressively with their own proprietary re-writes of the same utilities. For example take a look at the SAMBA service in the newer versions of OS X, it has nothing in common with the GNU one other than that it implements the same SMB protocol. What's really funny at least to me is that Apple's implementation beats the crap out of the GNU one in terms of compatibility with newer windowses.



Last version of OS X I used was Lion - and it still had GNU bash, binutils and other parts of the GNU userland.


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## kpa (Dec 7, 2016)

At least on OS X sierra the binutils are all CLang/LLVM based:


```
$ ld -v
@(#)PROGRAM:ld  PROJECT:ld64-274.1
configured to support archs: armv6 armv7 armv7s arm64 i386 x86_64 x86_64h armv6m armv7k armv7m armv7em (tvOS)
LTO support using: LLVM version 8.0.0, (clang-800.0.42.1)
TAPI support using: Apple TAPI version 1.30
```

The bash shell is going to an interesting one, they are stuck at version 3.2 from 2006 (I think) and replacing that with their own implementation or a simpler shell such as the FreeBSD sh(1) is going to be a compatibility nightmare if they ever attempt that.


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## fnoyanisi (Dec 7, 2016)

kpa said:


> At least on OS X sierra the binutils are all CLang/LLVM based:


No more OS X, macOS now 



kpa said:


> The bash shell is going to an interesting one, they are stuck at version 3.2 from 2006 (I think) and replacing that with their own implementation or a simpler shell such as the FreeBSD sh(1) is going to be a compatibility nightmare if they ever attempt that.



I think Apple has never targetted power users, hence shipping an up to date shell is somehwere down in their priority list. The areas that macOS shines are aesthetics, ease of use and these sort of cosmetic things (kudos on them, MacbookPro is a good combination of well designed hardware + a nice looking OS).

Getting back to the topic of OP; if you look at the macOS kernel architecture below







you will see that bits like networking were imported from FreeBSD, which is direct descendent of 4.4BSD-Lite. BSD networking code was one of the mature implementations of TCP/IP model in 90's I reckon and AT&T lawsuit was over by the time Apple considered looking into BSD code - no legal disputes!. 

Not sure about the file system, though! As TeamBlackFox mentioned, HFS+ is something different than UFS.

History of UNIX is really fun to read. I read this book and enjoyed it really (digital edition is not more than 10 bucks), if you are interested, definitely recommend the book.


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## BSD-Kitsune (Dec 7, 2016)

fnoyanisi said:


> I think Apple has never targetted power users, hence shipping an up to date shell is somehwere down in their priority list. The areas that macOS shines are aesthetics, ease of use and these sort of cosmetic things (kudos on them, MacbookPro is a good combination of well designed hardware + a nice looking OS).
> 
> Getting back to the topic of OP; if you look at the macOS kernel architecture below
> 
> ...



macOS only has aesthetics, ease of use is a very subjective subject and since they bury any and all advanced options away from prying eyes, it's impossible for it to satisfy anyone who has an aspiration for more than the most mundane use of computers. Windows, I'll grant that they at least provide, under the hood, a full set of tools for their power users and they're easily accessible: PowerShell, the *msc programs etc. are all easily accessible. IRIX may not be aesthetically pleasing but in its case it makes everything rather easy for even poorly trained computer users, I did this as a test with my own mother, who found for a day that a default install of IRIX on my SGI Fuel was actually quite easy to use for her intended uses, email, web browsing and so-on. 

As for the code-commonality with macOS, there's a few things you have to first realize. One, kernels are a small part of the overall code of the OS. So just looking at the kernel, you get a poor idea of how much BSD code is in OS X. Specifically, I'd estimate around 30% of the XNU kernel is originally BSD derived, with around 10% from FreeBSD, the reason being all of the code that came in from NeXSTEP. Which is far removed from anything we're used to. Darwin, the macOS kernel and userland minus the proprietary bits, is far removed from any modern BSD. You don't believe me? Feel free to try replacing the XNU kernel into FreeBSD or the FreeBSD kernel into Darwin, see how far you get. The kernels are entirely different.


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## fnoyanisi (Dec 7, 2016)

TeamBlackFox said:


> macOS only has aesthetics, ease of use is a very subjective subject and since they bury any and all advanced options away from prying eyes, it's impossible for it to satisfy anyone who has an aspiration for more than the most mundane use of computers.


Yes and no...
Totally agree with that being "easy to use" is subjective. However, from Apple's perspective (not advocating anybody here) "users do not need to tweak anything, because Apple already provides what is best for you". They simply don't want the thing they sell to be hackable. This may not (and does not) satify average FreeBSD user, but totally fine for many people. Look at MacBookPro 2016 (i.e. how many connectivity ports it has, or no chance of swapping/upgrading hardware etc.)



TeamBlackFox said:


> As for the code-commonality with macOS, there's a few things you have to first realize. One, kernels are a small part of the overall code of the OS. So just looking at the kernel, you get a poor idea of how much BSD code is in OS X.


I referred the kernel architecture since the OP meantions use of FreeBSD kernel instead of XNU.


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## BSD-Kitsune (Dec 8, 2016)

Exactly, the Macbook Pro is a status symbol nothing more it's nowhere near that price tag they're asking for and is only good for anyone who isn't a power user. By comparison, I got my W530, used for $500, shopped around and got a 3940XM CPU for $300, put that in there along with $70 for 32GB, and an SSD and an HDD I had lying around plus $15 for a caddy for the second HDD - and I'm already outclassing their top configuration in a few areas:

RAM (twice as much!)
All but the top CPU are slower: http://cpu.userbenchmark.com/Compare/Intel-Core-i7-6820HQ-vs-Intel-Core-i7-3940XM/m43500vsm7092
Cost! I got this baby for a total of $985 upgraded to a decked out configuration with directly disable-able Optimus, perfect FreeBSD support, and the capability to still run Windows 7 effectively as my dual boot machine. 

All in all I don't think a several thousand dollar premium over the W530 are looking too good.


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## drhowarddrfine (Dec 8, 2016)

I may not be following the thread properly but my son, and everyone he knows, would disagree about Macs being for aesthetics alone. He's in the theatre as a producer and actor. Everyone he knows has a Mac laptop and they all love it and wouldn't even consider anything else. I know. I asked. In fact, he owned a Windows PC and notebooks until he went to college for theatre but was swayed into getting a Mac desktop cause he always was envious of what his colleagues could do with their Macs, not only graphics ability but the ability to connect to anything, and now he owns every Apple device except a phone (and I don't know why he doesn't).

So now he's all Apple all the time and loves it. The only concern of his is what he reads online. Nothing he ever reads online was a bother until he read about it. "Am I supposed to be worried about the lack of innovation at Apple?", he asks me. Well, I replied, if you're able to do the things you want to do then no.

Now, as far as "price premium" is concerned, until your Windows PC can plug in to a Windows PC communication device or some software and be guaranteed to work as advertised, and if it doesn't, you can walk down to the Windows PC Store to get the problem resolved, there isn't much to talk about.

Now I have never owned any Apple device except for an original iPad given to me for Christmas years ago but has everyone seen the photo of the scientists at a CERN conference a couple of years ago with a hundred or so of them and their Mac notebooks all open? Doesn't sound like they would be as concerned with aesthetics alone.


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## obsigna (Dec 8, 2016)

Usually drhowarddrfine and I agree to disagree, but this time I agree by 100 % to his response on the rather limited point of view of TeamBlackFox.


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## BSD-Kitsune (Dec 8, 2016)

Here's the thing. A lot of "producers" claim an Apple is a better product because of applications like Final Cut, etc. but really I've used both Final Cut and Windows applications like Sony Vegas and they're roughly the same. Most of the same major applications are available for each and Windows has just as much capability of displaying a high res screen - in fact you can get a high res Windows laptop cheaper than a MacBook Pro. 

If you're buying an Apple because it's "Guaranteed to work with everything" you're kidding yourself. I was an Apple user from '06-'13 and it wasn't any easier than owning a Windows machine. In fact because everything for Apples costs at a premium I probably wasted $10,000 through high school and college on Apple shit I could have gotten on Windows for half as much. I owned several, for the record. A PowerMac G4, a Powerbook G4, a G5, an original "MacBook" and a Retina Macbook Pro. The Retina was the saddest of them. Everything is glued into place and the SSD failed three times, the final two times Apple refused to cover it so I had to shell out for a replacement myself. And it wasn't a standard SSD. No. I had to buy either from Apple or one of their expensive "Approved third parties." Which is a load of horse shit because any other manufacturer would have a standard setup in there so you can go to any old Microcenter and buy what you need. 

Going back to the "Why macOS doesn't use the FreeBSD kernel." the reason I started including the entire OS is because if you limit yourself to the view of the XNU kernel you get a poor idea of how much code macOS actually uses.


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## drhowarddrfine (Dec 8, 2016)

TeamBlackFox said:


> A lot of "producers" claim an Apple is a better product because of applications like Final Cut, etc. but really I've used both Final Cut and Windows applications like Sony Vegas and they're roughly the same.


He's not in motion pictures. He owns and runs a theare company for stage plays.



TeamBlackFox said:


> you can get a high res Windows laptop cheaper than a MacBook Pro.


As I said, when that Windows laptop has problems, who will sit with you and help you resolve it in person?



TeamBlackFox said:


> If you're buying an Apple because it's "Guaranteed to work with everything" you're kidding yourself.


You should see all the connectivity going on among the 10 people working on one of his stage plays, all using Macs. When he buys something new and plugs it into his equipment, it's on and works as expected. I can't say the same for most Windows stuff I used to buy.

His hard drive had a problem after five years of use. I walked down the street 

When I worked at SGI, standard issue was a Mac (but, yeah, it's been a long time since I was there).

I have to run but any complaints about not being able to use other people's hardware means Apple loses control of that hardware which means Apple cannot provide the service and guarantees it offers and, therefore, its quality of hardware and service would degrade just as it does with Windows PCs.

For example, my wife has a brand new Lenovo laptop which upgraded to Windows 10 and now only gets 4Mb wifi downloads. You have three third parties involved. Lenovo drivers for someone else's wifi chip and Micrsoft's Windows all not working together in unison.


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## BSD-Kitsune (Dec 8, 2016)

drhowarddrfine said:


> He's not in motion pictures. He owns and runs a theare company for stage plays.



Video editing software is the same regardless of your status as an stage man or what. If you're talking audio and other engineering, there's equivalent programs on the Windows machine




drhowarddrfine said:


> As I said, when that Windows laptop has problems, who will sit with you and help you resolve it in person?



You can't be talking about the Apple "Geniuses" Those morons can't 90% of their time engineer their way out of a rice paper bag. I gave my Retina Macbook to my mother after I said "Fuck this rubbish."and I took it down to the Genius Bar, made and appointment and all that to get her profile transferred off her old Macbook and get the Retina setup under her Apple ID. It took 2 hours, three geniuses and a manager to do something that normally would take me 30 mins, I just didn't want to go through it because I'm a grown man, I have work, and my own problems and I'd rather pay someone whose supposed to be trained to do that as their job. I'm reminded of this wonderful South Park video: http://southpark.cc.com/clips/382790/the-counsel-of-geniuses



drhowarddrfine said:


> You should see all the connectivity going on among the 10 people working on one of his stage plays, all using Macs. When he buys something new and plugs it into his equipment, it's on and works as expected. I can't say the same for most Windows stuff I used to buy.
> 
> His hard drive had a problem after five years of use. I walked down the street



And the same thing happens for most Windows software. I recently bought a Razer Cherry Green keyboard, a condenser microphone, and setup a SMB share on Windows Server 2016. Guess what? Everything worked just fine! You read the manual, plug it in, follow any instructions thereafter and boom, it all worked fine. 



drhowarddrfine said:


> When I worked at SGI, standard issue was a Mac (but, yeah, it's been a long time since I was there).
> 
> I have to run but any complaints about not being able to use other people's hardware means Apple loses control of that hardware which means Apple cannot provide the service and guarantees it offers and, therefore, its quality of hardware and service would degrade just as it does with Windows PCs.



It's hardware has already dropped to the pits. I still have a G4 cube somewhere in storage. You open it up and everything is laid out perfectly and not a thing is out of place. Everything is put where it needs to be and there's no issue - you can remove the logic board, the CPU, the graphics card, and replace all of them without buying a new system. You can't even AFAIK open a new "trash can" Mac Pro, let alone a Macbook Pro, without special tools and nothing is upgradeable, all is glued or soldered in. And what happens when your battery fails, or your RAM dies? You need a new system, effectively because it's all *FRIGGING GLUED INSIDE. *You're paying thousands for techniques for building computers that only belong on bargain bin shelves. 



drhowarddrfine said:


> For example, my wife has a brand new Lenovo laptop which upgraded to Windows 10 and now only gets 4Mb wifi downloads. You have three third parties involved. Lenovo drivers for someone else's wifi chip and Micrsoft's Windows all not working together in unison.



You're flawed in your analogy. Apple doesn't make half of the drivers in its OS, it uses the same drivers that everyone else uses from third party manufacturers. And it's not like there's been driver issues on Macs - oh wait there is. The Retina had a problem with the Nvidia driver that caused games under OS X to have texture distortion and tearing. Go over to the Windows bootcamp drive, and boom, game works fine. Never got fixed with Apple updates on mine, essentially breaking the experience for me. As for your wife's issue, check the card's chipset, and download the direct manufacturer's driver. That's what I do anyways when installing stuff on Windows, rather than using OEM drivers. I also reimage any new computer I buy since why the hell not.

I also don't use 8 or 10 due to backdoors installed, and macOS has them too - so you're not safe using either OS.


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## aragats (Dec 8, 2016)

Since it's already deviated from the OP's topic, let me bring my example.
My wife loves her Macbook Air. She uses Skype much. One day (a year or so ago) her laptop installed updates and asked to reboot.
Guess what? Skype has stopped detecting the webcam! Thinking the same way as TeamBlackFox mentioned above, I emailed those "geniuses", and they replied that "Skype" is a third-party software and that's a problem of its developers!!
I searched the net and found an older version of the webcam driver, unpacked it and overwrote the new one, rebooted, and it worked again! Of course, that was a quick and dirty tweak, but what else could I do without wasting my time for their crap?..


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## drhowarddrfine (Dec 8, 2016)

aragats said:


> Since it's already deviated from the OP's topic, let me bring my example.
> My wife loves her Macbook Air. She uses Skype much. One day (a year or so ago) her laptop installed updates and asked to reboot.
> Guess what? Skype has stopped detecting the webcam! Thinking the same way as TeamBlackFox mentioned above, I emailed those "geniuses", and they replied that "Skype" is a third-party software and that's a problem of its developers!!
> I searched the net and found an older version of the webcam driver, unpacked it and overwrote the new one, rebooted, and it worked again! Of course, that was a quick and dirty tweak, but what else could I do without wasting my time for their crap?..


Cause Microsoft made changes. It's Microsoft's software. Apple has no control over that and you help prove my point.


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## drhowarddrfine (Dec 8, 2016)

TeamBlackFox said:


> Video editing software is the same regardless of your status as an stage man or what. If you're talking audio and other engineering, there's equivalent programs on the Windows machine
> 
> 
> 
> ...


You are only proving my point about windows third party issues


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## aragats (Dec 8, 2016)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Cause Microsoft made changes. It's Microsoft's software. Apple has no control over that and you help prove my point.


No! It's Apple who made changes to the driver! It was working perfectly before!
(I'm not a MS advocate, by the way)


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## drhowarddrfine (Dec 8, 2016)

Some time ago, but fairly recently, there were a lot of complaints from just about everywhere about Skype no longer working in Linux and other areas. It was noted that Microsoft had made changes to the software causing these problems. I don't use Skype so I don't have a need to recall those details. I'm betting it's the same as what you had.

TeamBlackFox Please mind your language. This place isn't reddit.


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## BSD-Kitsune (Dec 8, 2016)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Cause Microsoft made changes. It's Microsoft's software. Apple has no control over that and you help prove my point.





drhowarddrfine said:


> Some time ago, but fairly recently, there were a lot of complaints from just about everywhere about Skype no longer working in Linux and other areas. It was noted that Microsoft had made changes to the software causing these problems. I don't use Skype so I don't have a need to recall those details. I'm betting it's the same as what you had.



Are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? Microsoft doesn't distribute drivers for Apple. They have *NOTHING TO DO* with the problem beyond porting Skype to the platform - if you're aware of how driver architecture works, then you'd know that there's zero way that Skype could overwrite or make changes to the *webcam driver*.

My language? None of it was directed towards you or anyone else here, so it's irrelevant and a strawman you're bringing up to support your assertion and somehow devalue my arguments.



drhowarddrfine said:


> You are only proving my point about windows third party issues



How? I explained that a keyboard, condenser mic and a SMB share worked fine, provided that you *read the manual* like, you know, anyone with common sense should do.

And then I explained that as long as you use the proper driver provided by the direct supplier of your hardware, not the OEM you buy your gear from, it's no problem. Windows may have lots of problems, namely the in-kernel GUI, the Registry, and the rampant Spyware in 8 and 10


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## fnoyanisi (Dec 8, 2016)

Wow...the question on "Why did Apple not use FreeBSD kernel instead of XNU" turned into flame wars on "the best operating system" 

Will get my popcorn and follow the thread, yay


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## drhowarddrfine (Dec 9, 2016)

Yeah he's flying off the handle now and I don't go to reddit for the same reasons so that's the end of that.


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## BSD-Kitsune (Dec 9, 2016)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Yeah he's flying off the handle now and I don't go to reddit for the same reasons so that's the end of that.



Naw I was just emphasizing my points. You're entitled to your opinion and all that, but your opinion is ill informed - I was correcting you.


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## puretone (Aug 28, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Now, as far as "price premium" is concerned, until your Windows PC can plug in to a Windows PC communication device or some software and be guaranteed to work as advertised, and if it doesn't, you can walk down to the Windows PC Store to get the problem resolved, there isn't much to talk about.
> 
> Now I have never owned any Apple device except for an original iPad given to me for Christmas years ago but has everyone seen the photo of the scientists at a CERN conference a couple of years ago with a hundred or so of them and their Mac notebooks all open? Doesn't sound like they would be as concerned with aesthetics alone.



On the "price premium" bit, are you sure? Ask anyone who repairs Apple laptops at the component level... the one thing you invariably hear each time "boy, these things are made with the crappiest/obsolete/old chips & horrible soldering quality" & followed very closely by "for a 2000$ laptop you'd expect much better build quality". The fact of the matter is most Apple hardware looks neatly polished if you are into austere minimalism. Do also not forget that, like all herding animals/cattle, humans tend to conform to the path commonly taken. So much for that "think different" nonsense. Apple crap has been a "fashion" or "trend" statement much more then actual useful quality reasons.

As for the science geeks, CERN included, there is a much more logical reasoning going on. Pretty much everybody concerned with hardcore physics/astrophysics & a whole variety of other science arenas, use some form of open source OS by default. Usually this is Linux. Nearly every single telescope installation uses some serious Unix kit for operational duties. I get quite a kick of pausing the various astronomy tv shows/documentaries on scenes where one can see some computer desktop in action... I'm always trying to figure out/guess what Unix flavor they are running. It might strike some as surprising, but many hardcore scientific research geeks write their own code. Astro & theoretical physicists in particular. It makes perfect sense that they'd end up using a PC that is already very closely aligned to Unix. Granted macOS has bastardized much of it. I highly doubt it has anything to do with the science geek arena preferring Apple hardware "because it looks good" or "because it is well built".
Do also keep in mind, and this applies greatly to CERN, how much it would cost to have all of their desktop/server computer farms furnished with a genuine MS Windows license. Not to mention the routine legal spats Europe had with Microsoft over the years.

Then there's all the supercomputers theoretical physicists assault with enormous amounts of mathematical gibberish (al-jabr / algebra / gibberish, yes indeed it is of Arabic origin) none of us here on the FreeBSD forums would even try to attempt to understand...


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## drhowarddrfine (Aug 28, 2018)

puretone said:


> Ask anyone who repairs Apple laptops at the component level


I've not asked anyone in the two years since I wrote that and only knew what the engineers at Apple told me before that, not a technician at an Apple store, but your quoted opinion does not sound like fact and your third paragraph about Apple products is definitely opinion alone. 

When I worked at Silicon Graphics, the first standard issue to us all was a Mac because everyone had a Mac and everything networked easily with it. You plug in and it worked.

I did not bother to visit previous postings in this two-year old thread, so I don't know what point you're trying to make, but fact is fact. OSX is certified UNIX. CERN scientists use it a lot over Windows.


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## puretone (Sep 4, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> I've not asked anyone in the two years since I wrote that and only knew what the engineers at Apple told me before that, not a technician at an Apple store, but your quoted opinion does not sound like fact and your third paragraph about Apple products is definitely opinion alone.
> 
> When I worked at Silicon Graphics, the first standard issue to us all was a Mac because everyone had a Mac and everything networked easily with it. You plug in and it worked.
> 
> I did not bother to visit previous postings in this two-year old thread, so I don't know what point you're trying to make, but fact is fact. OSX is certified UNIX. CERN scientists use it a lot over Windows.



For build quality and component source quality, look no further then https://www.youtube.com/user/rossmanngroup/videos
In fact, grab yourself a few mugs of tea, sit back & relax and watch a few of his videos. You'll quickly come to notice a trend: same crap design, repeated with same crap quality components, repeated with same crap quality manufacturing. The stunts Apple pulls lately with their hardware is baffling. The trend here is: buy mega-bucks replacement parts from Apple, installed *only* by Apple, and priced thru the roof so you'll be easily inclined to buy some new-obsolete Apple product.
Asking an Apple tech about their "achievements" is like asking a fish to critique a orangutan's ability to climb trees.
Keep in mind, by the way, at the extraordinary levels Apple has gone with proprietary hardware & firmware. There are plenty of examples where they've chosen to add extra pins to the SATA data/power terminal standard, "adjusted" the NVMe form factor to their proprietary needs etc, to lock you into some sort of ignorant death spiral. In their words "because reasons" or "because customer needs".... The fact that so often you can't use a piece of hardware when it is "approved" by Apple, is reason enough. Little firmware chips are added everywhere.

I'll assume you meant SGI as it was decades ago. A time when networking a TI-86 calculator posed a similar challenge. Just because the company choose a particular set of hardware kit to deploy for employees, *and* configured their network to focus solely on that narrow set of specific hardware kit does not mean said hardware is superior. 

I'm certain world-class physics nerds would prefer to use a Linux distro, or better yet, a BSD distro on light portable durable hardware that is closely developed to said chosen OS. So far there are limited options, and they are primarily aligned to Linux like say for instance Purism/Librem laptops...virtually none for BSD. Things can, of course, be made to work quite well, but it requires quite a bit of tinkering with the OS before it efficiently runs the hardware. It is not primarily a matter of OSX being Unix certified or not. Rather, it is a matter of (portable) Unix/Linux source & programming deployment on hand right out of the box availability. FermiLabs for instance is a good example.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 4, 2018)

puretone said:


> You'll quickly come to notice a trend: same crap design, repeated with same crap quality components, repeated with same crap quality manufacturing.


When someone is posting videos of a computer repair guy with computers that were turned in cause they are broke, I don't expect to see things that are flawless. It would be pretty boring if he showed you perfectly built hardware with no visible issues and you had to endure him using an oscilloscope to find an eventual bad chip. To be fair, I did not bother to look at the videos. Also to be fair, a 0.1% failure of a million PC boards is still 10,000 PC boards. How good manufacturing is since Steve Jobs is gone would be a guess on my part and I assume yours, too.



puretone said:


> The trend here is: buy mega-bucks replacement parts from Apple, installed *only* by Apple, and priced thru the roof so you'll be easily inclined to buy some new-obsolete Apple product.


You mean like your laptop? Does Microsoft guarantee hardware you buy will work with their software and provide a Microsoft store to bring it to if it doesn't? Apple guarantees end-to-end their software works with their hardware. They do not guarantee somebody else's hardware or software for anything. Neither does Microsoft or Dell.


puretone said:


> Keep in mind, by the way, at the extraordinary levels Apple has gone with proprietary hardware & firmware.


Well, when you have a closed system and you supply the hardware, you can do anything you want. In a software sense, my web dev company has two large clients who only care about performance. So we use whatever software and languages we want without concern for winning any reddit popularity contests. And those clients are far better off because of it.



puretone said:


> Just because the company choose a particular set of hardware kit to deploy for employees, *and* configured their network to focus solely on that narrow set of specific hardware kit does not mean said hardware is superior.



Uh, no. It was off-the-shelf Apple hardware and software. The box I was shipped was a still sealed box from Apple. Everyone had one.



puretone said:


> I'm certain world-class physics nerds would prefer to use a Linux distro, or better yet, a BSD distro on light portable durable hardware that is closely developed to said chosen OS.


Actually, there's a photo online showing a CERN conference filled with Mac notebooks a few years ago. I'd bet I can find it again.

Not as good as the one I had.
But here's another.
Does NASA count?


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## ralphbsz (Sep 5, 2018)

There are two PhD physicists in this household.  One is sitting across from me on the sofa: while she has a PhD in experimental astrophysics, she now works in radiation physics.  On her lap is a Dell running Windows.  Why Windows?  Because as part of her job she needs to use quite a bit of specialized software (expensive commercial stuff), which is only available on Windows (not even on a Mac).  The other physicist is sitting in my chair, and I currently have my office Mac on the lap.  Sitting next to me is my 10-year old personal MacBook.  If you claim that Macs are such total crap, how do you explain that this particular one has survived 10 years of heavy use (albeit with replacing the battery 3 or 4 times and the disk once)?  The third computer sitting next to me is a used MacBook, vintage 2015, which I just inherited from my son (who went and got a brand-new MacBook, since he just went off to college); if I have an hour, I'll move from my 10-year old machine to the 3-year old one, but I haven't found the time for that yet.

By the way, I have lost track of how many Macs and iPads our son owns and uses.  He used to also have a dedicated Windows machine for gaming; today, when he needs to run Windows games, he dual-boots his Mac hardware into Windows, using an external disk drive.

In the office, our group has about a dozen and a half PhDs, a mixture of physicists, mathematicians, statisticians, and computer scientists.  Most have a MacBook as a laptop, while a few instead have a Chromebook.  In theory it would be possible to also get a Linux- or Windows laptop, but I don't know anyone closely who has one.  One of the fathers of BSD works in my office, and he has a Chromebook.  The only people who have Linux laptops in my office that I know of are Linux kernel developers.  Three of my colleagues have additional fixed desktop machines, and if I remember right, two are MacPro (the black cylindrical tower), and one is a Linux machine.

Because I have worked in research and physics for so long, I still know lots of active physicists.  The vast majority have MacBooks as their go-around machine, a smaller number have Windows laptops.  Among physicists who now work solely in computing, you find occasional Linux laptops.  Yes, I have worked at CERN (somewhere on the web is a picture of me inside the CERN data center, with a few colleagues), and most people carry a Mac there.  Found the picture: http://www.lr.los-gatos.ca.us/2003/09/paul/DSCN0600.sml.jpg

Now, the machines where physicists do data analysis (and CERN has thousands of those in its data centers, and the big internet companies tend to have millions): Those nearly all run Linux.  Remember, among supercomputers Linux has 100% market share (none of the publicly known supercomputers in the top 500 in the world runs any operating system other than Linux), and in compute servers (not web, database or business logic servers), the market share of Linux is also above 90%.

Dear puretone: I understand that you hate Apple and the Mac.  That's your right.  Other people hate spinach.  But please do not make up facts that have nothing to do with reality, and are purely based on your emotions.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 5, 2018)

ralphbsz said:


> as part of her job she needs to use quite a bit of specialized software (expensive commercial stuff), which is only available on Windows


I continue to be dumbfounded that such software is designed for Windows and not Unix and Unix-like machines. The very large restaurant chain I'm involved with, all our POS machines are linked through Windows and Microsoft software and we have constant issues with it. I notice the TV weather people all have Windows software for their work on TV. In a professional environment, this makes no sense to me at all.


ralphbsz said:


> I have lost track of how many Macs and iPads our son owns and uses.


When my son went to university for theatre school, he was the only one in his class that didn't have a Mac. Now he has everything Apple related and life is easier for his theatre company and his "real job".


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## ralphbsz (Sep 5, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> I continue to be dumbfounded that such software is designed for Windows and not Unix and Unix-like machines.


From the viewpoint of a software developer, I agree.  It would be more pleasant to develop for Unix or Mac.  But you need to consider this: There are superb toolsets and software components that are available on Windows.  For example, if you need database-like functionality but keep the database accessible to non-programmers, the ability to easily integrate with MS Access is highly valuable.  Now, similar solutions may exist in Unix/Mac land, but they are less common, and less end-user friendly, and more targeted at computer hackers.

So why is there more software for Windows?  Because on desktop/laptop machines, Windows still has a very high market share (around 90%).  If a company were to offer software only for Linux and other Unixes, it would be restricted to a small single-digit percent of the market.  And the Mac is somewhere in the middle (on a log scale, it is roughly 10%).  Like it or not, that's a sad fact about market share.



> The very large restaurant chain I'm involved with, all our POS machines are linked through Windows and Microsoft software ...


The software my wife buys is purely for scientific / engineering purposes, and costs a lot of money (licenses tend to run 5-digit amounts in US-$).  It is highly specialized, and not many copies are sold.  I'm sure the developers could not afford creating versions for multiple OSes.



> I notice the TV weather people all have Windows software for their work on TV. In a professional environment, this makes no sense to me at all.


It makes perfect sense.  If you use a computer for a specialized application (and weather display on TV is a highly specialized function), you probably buy software that costs a heck of a lot of money.  At that point, the computer it runs on and the OS of that computer are small and irrelevant: they are just tools to deliver the software.  Sure, integrating a Windows machine into a network and a workflow is harder.  But compared to the large investment into specialized software, and the corresponding large value that the software delivers, that factor is so small as to not be relevant.  The convenience of the software developer is a more important factor.

And finally, today's Windows on today's hardware is actually reasonably good solution.  It doesn't crash all the time any longer (like it did 20 or 30 years ago), the file system doesn't suffer data loss all the time, device drivers and integration with hardware are pretty darn good (usually better than with Linux and much better than *BSD, look at all the problems people have with GPUs and WiFi).  I can not get mad at a corporate solution that is build on Windows end-user machines; that can be perfectly sensible.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 6, 2018)

ralphbsz said:


> There are superb toolsets and software components that are available on Windows.


Yes. Superb tools for handling Microsoft software on Windows but my complaint is that one should not be using Windows for professional software.



ralphbsz said:


> So why is there more software for Windows? Because on desktop/laptop machines, Windows still has a very high market share (around 90%).


That includes the general public but I am talking about professionals. In the kitchen of my restaurant, and all restaurants, you don't find the same pots and pans and knives and machinery you find at home. So why is this true of professional software?



ralphbsz said:


> At that point, the computer it runs on and the OS of that computer are small and irrelevant: they are just tools to deliver the software. Sure, integrating a Windows machine into a network and a workflow is harder.


Which again begs the question. Why put it on Windows if cost does not matter and Windows is harder?



ralphbsz said:


> Windows on today's hardware is actually reasonably good solution.


I'm not talking hardware. I'm talking software. And all the good things you talk about may work fine but they don't work as  good as on a Linux or BSD machine. When I designed the hardware for a medical computer for eye surgery, a while back, Windows was never a consideration.



ralphbsz said:


> device drivers and integration with hardware are pretty darn good (usually better than with Linux and much better than *BSD


We just upgraded to Windows 7 two years ago from XP. Our POS systems are custom built celeron CPU devices we can't open. The drivers and hardware my company uses for our workstations and servers are not custom machines but they work pretty darn good for 15 years and we built the workstations about a thousand dollars cheaper for each one and STILL get charged for support.

Why do we professional programmers use BSD with off-the-shelf hardware but the TV weatherman and my restaurant chain can't? This makes NO sense to me whatsoever.


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## Beastie7 (Sep 6, 2018)

Once FreeBSD is shipped with a GUI (Or a GUI version) and provides an easy, graphical means of installing third party software and drivers; we can argue for mere mortals using FreeBSD. No matter the "Professional".

Otherwise, we're beating a dead horse; as it's never going to happen.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 6, 2018)

Beastie7 said:


> we can argue for mere mortals using FreeBSD. No matter the "Professional".


That's one thing I forgot to mention before going to bed that I knew someone would bring up. That "mere mortals" can't manage or use a Linux or FreeBSD machine to use or run the professional software for work which is pure poppycock. The POS terminals at my restaurants are Windows machines but you would not know that by looking at them. The software interface looks and works nothing like Windows from a user standpoint and if it was some other OS no one would know. And that's often true for some POS machines where iPads are often the hardware device nowadays.

So when you have some professional with a BS degree operating scientific software (weather) that interfaces with other machines running scientific software, why isn't it on a professional machine with a professional operating system and not one that spends half its time geared toward games and gaming and installing software you never use or want and ads?


----------



## Nicola Mingotti (Sep 6, 2018)

fnoyanisi said:


> Apple explains the architecture of OS X kernel here.
> And if you have time, here is a good reading.



The first is the is the most authoritative thing one could post !
Extremely good links. Thank you.


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## kpedersen (Sep 6, 2018)

Beastie7 said:


> Once FreeBSD is shipped with a GUI (Or a GUI version) and provides an easy, graphical means of installing third party software and drivers; we can argue for mere mortals using FreeBSD. No matter the "Professional".
> 
> Otherwise, we're beating a dead horse; as it's never going to happen.



Microsoft released Windows Server Core in 2008 because of a growing need for an OS without a GUI for "professional uses". If FreeBSD decided to come with a GUI, it would be like taking a step backwards.

Not to mention, OpenBSD "comes with a GUI" and I don't exactly see that on everyday Joe's Macbook. Granted OpenBSD provides a GUI for technical / security / historical reasons rather than to make it "easy and fun" for a user but it shows that users don't want a GUI, they want a "brand" and an experience.

Heck, I can guarantee that if Apple told its users that the CLI is faster and more efficient than any GUI so we decided to go with it, you would see professional users, hobbiests and perhaps even hipsters "becoming one with the command line" 

But you are right, it is never going to happen and at this point... I am quite sure we don't want it to happen.


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## kpedersen (Sep 6, 2018)

pyret said:


> A GUI is superfluous eye candy for users. Plan 9 has a GUI with `rio` which is no frills but gets the job done.  I prefer it’s minimalist design.



Ironically I think where Plan 9 "lost" it was by losing touch with the CLI system and diverting focus away from it instead of developing it further. For example the shell is extremely basic (no history, tab completion or history). It also did not provide cli tools such as Vi. Acme and Sam are GUI text editors which don't even allow you to use the arrow keys to go up or down a line. Yes, in those days UNIX at the time was also more primitive than today but most shells provided a better cli and keyboard experience than Plan 9. The important one was job control.

These days I use a slightly hacked up rio (X11 based rio clone) from plan9port and interestingly a lot of people look at my screen and say, "Wow, it looks kind of modern and minimalistic". This is slightly surprising to me but does actually show that trends do seem to come in cycles. For example rio's flat simplistic look does unfortunately tend to resemble Microsoft's weird metro crud .


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## Beastie7 (Sep 6, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> So when you have some professional with a BS degree operating scientific software (weather) that interfaces with other machines running scientific software, why isn't it on a professional machine with a professional operating system and not one that spends half its time geared toward games and gaming and installing software you never use or want and ads?



I don't understand this question. The word "Professional" doesn't mean anything.

It's like arguing "Why isn't this color of goat not your favorite color?"

If we can get rid of this vagueness and address actual *use cases* we can better answer these types of questions.

I consider FreeBSD a good "integral systems" platform. But for content creation, gaming, enterprise office work, for example; it falls short.

FreeBSD can be a usable desktop. But it's first impressions (basically a naked base OS) will not entice a lot of people.


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## kpa (Sep 6, 2018)

Or you can have my view which is that FreeBSD is a DiY toolkit for anyone who likes to tinker their OS the way they like it. That's not going to attract a lot of people who just want a working desktop system on initial install and can then forget the inner workings of the OS, which is fine but please look elsewhere if you fall into this group.


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## Beastie7 (Sep 6, 2018)

kpa said:


> Or you can have my view which is that FreeBSD is a DiY toolkit for anyone who likes to tinker their OS the way they like it. That's not going to attract a lot of people who just want a working desktop system on initial install and can then forget the inner workings of the OS, which is fine but please look elsewhere if you fall into this group.



Precisely.


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## Sensucht94 (Sep 6, 2018)

fnoyanisi said:


> I think Apple has never targetted power users, hence shipping an up to date shell is somehwere down in their priority list. The areas that macOS shines are aesthetics, ease of use and these sort of cosmetic things (kudos on them, MacbookPro is a good combination of well designed hardware + a nice looking OS).



Yet they just released a CoW FS  (APFS) which IMHO under many aspects already beats the Btrfs/Bcachefs/Reiser4 crap (stable native encryption, full snapshots, checksums, subvolumes, pool scrub, self-healing, 64bit inode number, delta compression, HFS2APFS conversion without data loss, I/O QoS to prioritize accesses that are immediately visible to the user,  over background activity that doesn't have the same time-constraints). The Apple Store is full of powerful development tools, whereas the MacPorts+pkgsrc couple  just offers most of the FOSS utils available on other *nix systems, Electron -based stuff aside; for Apple devs, Swift/Xcode are fine tools. I think macOS is a great Unix OS: 1) implements 4.3 BSD's POSIX API, file system hierarchy, network stack, user/group ids and permissions, etc.. on top of the modular Mach base, with its threads, synchronization
objects, scheduler, memory management; 2) follows OpenGroup's SUS and is registered Unix; 3) the Darwin userland adopts several tools from FreeBSD's as well as, in a less significant portion NetBSD and OpenBSD in this order. Since Darwin is opensource, getting at least a vague idea of what of FreeBSD is in Darwin should be as easy as https://github.com/apple/darwin-xnu/search?q=FreeBSD&unscoped_q=FreeBSD
Aside from the the arguable security/stability/memory protection boost which microkernels imply, another noticeable thing XNU added to traditional UNIX was Mach's the Carnegie-Mellon hardware abstraction, designed to enable CMU to develop an operating system for a massive parallel multi processor. However, parallelism is not just as in multi core systems, but also dedicated processors: disk transfer, video rendering, screen management.  Apparently  Quartz  is designed with this kind of abstraction in mind; I think Quartz is the right implementation of a modular display server/compositor, with a design that both Mir and Wayland somehow missed (even with a15 years delay). Overall, macOS it's well engineered, consistent, secure, easy to use and maintain, intuitive. The fact they factually abandoned development on the server/performance side since a decade or so (let's not forget some top supercomputers used to run OS X in the early '00s) doesn't mean they're all about aesthetics and do not care about quality and correctness.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 7, 2018)

Beastie7 said:


> The word "Professional" doesn't mean anything.
> 
> It's like arguing "Why isn't this color of goat not your favorite color?"


Of course it does. A professional is one who does things for a living and is paid to do so, directly or indirectly. Anything else is a home or hobbyist adventure. How the goat analogy fits here, I don't know.


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## _martin (Sep 7, 2018)

puretone Louis's channel is very good.  Not only because he shows how some solutions are crappy in Apple products but also he exposes their dirty practices: starting from repair policies to 3rd party parts providers. He's not a kid yapping about how bad apple products are -- he's showing us what they are like and provide a way to fix them (if you have skill). If not he provides you a service and does it for you. That's "put your money where your mouth is" by my standards. 

I have a 3800 EUR iMac and had broken hinges (stand). I found out it's the standard issue with these iMacs. Official shop wanted ridiculous money for repair and wanted that computer for a week (!). When I dissembled  it I saw that this isn't a design flaw -- it was put there on purpose to milk people yet again (YT provides many detail videos on this and reasoning behind it). I fixed it by creating proper metal rings for few cents. 
Personally I liked an older fella who got mad and drilled through the stand and fixed it with a  regular screw 
Don't get me started on LiteOn PSUs in iMacs..

But as with everything there's a problem when you have fanatic cloud of people around something. Be it pro-something or against it. 

In my experience though there's no single OS that does everything to my liking. Luckily I can choose. And I'm even more lucky that many of them come free or charge.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 7, 2018)

_martin said:


> When I dissembled it I saw that this isn't a design flaw -- it was put there on purpose to milk people yet again


This sort of statement gets me every time. I've been with a number of hardware manufacturers for decades and at no time did anyone ever 
suggest building in something to fail so we could milk the customer for money. It's a ridiculous accusation


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## _martin (Sep 7, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> It's a ridiculous accusation


No, it's not mate. Small plastic washers doing all the work on a set held by 15 screws and heavy springs ? That's ridiculous. Also captured on video here: broken stand.

I've also been around handful of engineers designing heavy machinery ( from prototypes to actual manufacturing ) and no, even intern would not design such thing. Some products are built with a pre-calculated retention and expected lifespan. And some are pure bad design.  And yes, that "expected" lifespan is sometimes (=not always) being lowered to keep money coming -- this is not something new.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 7, 2018)

_martin Your statement was that Apple intentionally designed flaws into their system with the purpose of milking people for more money. Your statement, in fact, is based of that guy in your linked video who you are taking at face value for what he said and not any knowledge of why it was done that way. For all we know, that spring is perfectly fine and that one spring is the only one in the history of all Apple manufacturing ever to break and there is nothing wrong with the design!

I'll repeat, I have worked with dozens of mechanical engineers in all my decades of work and have NEVER heard any of them talk once about intentionally designing in breakage in order to make more money off customers.


_martin said:


> Some products are built with a pre-calculated retention and expected lifespan.


Yes. THIS is true but not related to your accusation! A minimum life expectancy of a product is a design goal but that is not to be confused with building in a break point! One typically gives waranties and guarantees for products.


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## _martin (Sep 7, 2018)

When it comes to this particular issue: springs are perfectly OK. They are heavy duty springs. Also the stand assembly is from metal held by 15 strong screws. The housing of an iMac is built perfectly. The Achilles heal are the plastic washers that load the springs in the stand. That is what was guy in that video pointing out, that is what I had broken in my iMac. Everything there was built perfectly, you can safely say all those components would withstand way more abuse. All but those plastic washers. It's like designing, let's say, break levers on bicycle from cheap plastic.



drhowarddrfine said:


> I have worked with dozens of mechanical engineers in all my decades of work and have NEVER heard any of them talk once about intentionally designing in breakage in order to make more money off customers


I agree with you and I think any other engineer agrees with us. I am convinced that no engineer would design this on purpose. There are other processes that come into play during product manifacturing that can affect quality. Cost cuts and calculated lifespans outside of the original design. This is what I was pointing out -- sometimes the standards are lowered on purpose. And the lifespan of a certain chosen component is purposely lower. 

It hurts more when it comes to Apple because they are anything but cheap. So you'd expect more from them. This was true before, now I think they are cutting corners way too much and it shows.


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## Crivens (Sep 7, 2018)

Is there much we can expect from this thread in the future? Or, more to the point: why should it not be nailed down with a stake?


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 7, 2018)

Yeah, I think it's gone off course.


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## Beastie7 (Sep 8, 2018)

Crivens said:


> Is there much we can expect from this thread in the future?



One more thing


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 8, 2018)

Wait for it.


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## Crivens (Sep 8, 2018)

He who remembers a company named Phase5 will also remember "two more weeks".
Oh, and drhowarddrfine, there is something called "planned obsolescence". Be happy if you have not encountered it yet.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 8, 2018)

Crivens said:


> there is something called "planned obsolescence".


Planned obsolescence only works for bad companies that have a corner on the market and will only emphasize how bad a company is. Once a competitor gets a stronghold, that competitor can put the bad company out of business quickly. Apple does not have such a reputation.


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## Crivens (Sep 8, 2018)

It started with light bulbs. And now we have Ford, Apple, GM, ... all tweaking stuff so it barely makes it past the warranty.


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## ralphbsz (Sep 8, 2018)

I'm writing this on a 10-year old Apple laptop.  Planned obsolescence?  You got to be joking.
Crivens: Do you mean "Phase5" or "4 phase"?  I know of 4-phase systems; they were a really nice minicomputer company, OEM of Philips in Europe, and eventually got bought by Motorola and turned into Motorola's minicomputer line.


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## Crivens (Sep 8, 2018)

ralphbsz I mean Phase5. And I mean laptops and phones with glued in batteries that can not be changed, bearings that are so cheap to make better... heck, I'm a German Engineer(tm)! I design (well, would like to) things you can become family heirlooms. But these beancounters... /rant


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## _martin (Sep 8, 2018)

Crivens That was my point exactly in my posts above.


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## ralphbsz (Sep 8, 2018)

Yes, it is true that many vendors today do a very careful analysis of what their customers really want: A cheap product, a high-performance product, or a very reliable product.  And they make a very conscious decision of what to build and sell, based on their understanding of what their customers want.  Building a real-world product requires compromises there.  The old joke "good, fast, cheap, pick any two" is a quick summary of those compromises.

Apple is actually a very good example.  They know what most of their customers want: (1) a super easy user experience, seamless and efficient, while you stay in the "walled garden" of using only Apple products for all your computing and communications needs.  (2) Features, such as very light weight, high display resolution, good sound.  (3) Cost is not a big issue.  What typical apple customers are not interested in is long-term survival: typical customers replace cell phones in 1-2 years, and laptops in 2-4 years.  Most large corporate purchasers of laptops have policies that automatically replace employee laptops in a few years; at a previous employer I had to fight to keep my 3-year old laptop for another two years.

Apple is very good at servicing the needs and wants of that market segment.  If they can save or 30g, 1cm^3 or $10 by gluing the battery in, that is a good tradeoff for them and their users: The fact that the cellphone becomes obsolete after 2 years, or that the battery replacement on the laptop is a $300 repair at the Apple store instead of plopping in a $100 spare part is not important to their customers.  Most of the time they make the right choice; occasionally they screw up.  For example, the laptop with only one USC-C connector was a mistake, and they figured that out (too late unfortunately) and fixed it in the next generation.  Another example is the new Apple MacbookPro keyboard with the touch bar: While it is really good at serving a large segment of their user demographic (namely those who want a thinner and lighter laptop, and who don't touch type and are helped by the F-keys changing their labels depending on what app is using them right now), it gets other users really mad.  Unfortunately, I'm in the camp of the other users: I'm an old piano player and rely heavily on mechanical keyboard feel to type fast and accurately, and I touch-type the F keys blind (usually in emacs), so having them move around and not have tactile feedback really screws me up.  So Apple, in their (correct) drive to serve their core users better, is upsetting a fringe user.  So far I'm OK with this, because both at home and in the office I use my laptop with external keyboards, but in airports or meeting rooms I'm not a happy camper.

Dell, HP, Asus, Chromebook and Alienware also make competing laptop products.  They are engineered for different user expectations and wishes.  Some are cheap, some are fast, some are sturdy and reliable, some integrate well into corporate management systems, some are compatible with FOSS software, and so on.  In reality, they don't actually "compete" very much, because they all serve different segments of the market.

The important thing is this: If you are not the kind of user who fits the profile of what Apple (or any other vendor) is trying to serve, then don't buy that product.  And if you bought the wrong product, then don't get upset (in particular not in public) about the fact that it doesn't fit your desires.  This goes for many posts in this thread, where posters are needlessly and wrongly upset that Apple products don't do what they want.

Now where I agree with your comments about bearings: Sometimes a very small change to a product (a tiny cost or weight increase, like a better bearing on cooling fans) would make the product quite a bit more universal, and capable of serving a wider user base, or giving the core user demographic additional value or function.  Sometimes manufacturers do too good a job of tailoring their products at specific target markets, and forget that a little bit of universality would actually have a payoff too.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 9, 2018)

Crivens said:


> tweaking stuff so it barely makes it past the warranty.


Or was the warranty adjusted to match the expected life? ralphbsz brought up more good points so I don't have to.


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## _martin (Sep 9, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> Or was the warranty adjusted to match the expected life? ralphbsz brought up more good points so I don't have to.


No, it was tweaked to barely make past the warranty. In my example above (because that's the actual case I can bring up) it makes absolutely no sense to introduce so weak link into the otherwise strong setup. 

But that's it from me, seems my opinion and experience is hitting the wall here anyway..


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## Crivens (Sep 9, 2018)

_martin we simply are not the kind of people who the marketing folks see as their prey^h customer. We know it can be done better and are willing to keep stuff. And now I sound like me 'ol grapa, who used scrap to make tools which I still use...


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## _martin (Sep 9, 2018)

Crivens But that's exactly what I was telling all along.  And I 100% agree with you.  And also that's what I was pointing out on that iMac stand.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 9, 2018)

_martin said:


> No, it was tweaked to barely make past the warranty.


And, again I say to you. I have never worked with any  manufacturing engineer or marketing person who has ever thought like that in almost 20 years of designing computer systems for manufacture.


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## _martin (Sep 9, 2018)

drhowarddrfine said:


> I have never worked with any manufacturing engineer or marketing person who has ever thought like that in almost 20 years of designing computer systems for manufacture.


Could be .. and ? How does your experience come into play with iMac stand ? And as I've stated I too have people with long experience designing products and yes, we've seen purposely decreasing lifespan of a product.

But that's OK, we don't need to agree with each other drhowarddrfine. I wanted to point out that I too think what Crivens is saying and I agree with him. 
And yeah, I didn't want to react any more and I did ..


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## Deleted member 48958 (Sep 9, 2018)

Crivens said:


> I mean laptops and phones with glued in batteries that can not be changed, bearings that are so cheap to make better...


It is politics, they need to make fools to buy as much crap as they can, in a shortest timeline.
Because if no one won't buy their $HIT regularly, they'll lose money, so they're making crap,
which will become outdated and unusable in an artificial way in a certain period of time.
Also they're advertising it a lot, because it is very easy to manipulate some fools using ads.
And victims of marketing will buy it all very easily and very soon… Ready, Set, Go! 
It is true parasitic philosophy, BTW.


> *Parasitism* is a relationship between species, where one organism, *the parasite*, lives on or in another organism, the host, causing it some harm, and is adapted structurally to this way of life.


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## funkygoby (Sep 9, 2018)

ralphbsz said:


> The important thing is this: If you are not the kind of user who fits the profile of what Apple (or any other vendor) is trying to serve, then don't buy that product. And if you bought the wrong product, then don't get upset (in particular not in public) about the fact that it doesn't fit your desires. This goes for many posts in this thread, where posters are needlessly and wrongly upset that Apple products don't do what they want.


You are basically saying: "If you don't like it, don't buy it. If you already did, too bad" or I am reading this wrong? I believe you are dismissing the fact that people trust the brand and expect the product they buy to be an improved version of what they already bought. I believe Apple used to be "that" and now is "this". Maybe people should read reviews, stay sharp about what it inside the product etc ... so they never get surprised but that just not practical.

During the last 10 years, although I never owned any Apple products, I have used or seen others use those.
I have fond memories of their builtin hardware (ADC, DAC), also my first Unix experience, every pro studios I recorded in used Macs for their reliabilty. Lately, I have the strong impression that Apple products are less and less fit to fullfill the role where they used to shine: a studio guy told me that he had to downgrade to Sierra because Logic would crash if recording at 96000Hz; Apple Genius charging for bogus repair when all that was needed was a harddrive; iPod not syncing with HighSierra; all-USB-C design forcing the use of hubs (like having a Ferrari pulling a trailer).
I could go on.

I think we agree that Apple is now targeting different people that it used to.
But don't you think that Apple shifting the ground from under a whole userbase is "lacking consideration" and that they should be called on it? Maybe that userbase is the one responsible for Apple success in the first place.


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## fryshke (Sep 13, 2018)

Lol, planned obsolescence, poor 5 year old 5S iPhone will still get iOS 12. Lol. Lol. Lol.


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## Crivens (Sep 13, 2018)

Your point being?


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 13, 2018)

Crivens He doesn't need a point. He's a troll.


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## Crivens (Sep 13, 2018)

Yes, looks like. But no worries, this is not /.


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## drhowarddrfine (Sep 13, 2018)

But it will become one if this is allowed to continue.


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## Deleted member 48958 (Sep 13, 2018)

fryshke said:


> poor 5 year old 5S iPhone will still get iOS 12


If it was addressed to my comment, I wrote it not about "iPhone 5S" or another phone model,
I wrote about whole concept, such behavior of Apple Co was noticed repeatedly.
And of course, after "Apple investigated by France for 'planned obsolescence'",
they had to do something like this, so they gave second life for the only one old phone - 5S.
But, IMO, their design and politics tells exactly what I wrote in my previous post, if you're not blind
or Apple fanboy (or blind Apple fanboy if such exists) of course. 

Also, IMO, there is no big difference between M$ and Apple, both are moneymaking companies for masses,
but Apple is even a little bit worse, because M$ clearly says with their Window$ OS-es: "We are the shit for stupid
morons, if you're an idiot or housewife, use our production.", but Apple pretends to be somehow related to open
source world, while it is in fact the same (or even worse, considering all facts) evil moneymaking organization
(and like Adobe, for example, it supports none of its products on open source OS-es).


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## Crivens (Sep 13, 2018)

Since we left the original topic far off, this is  a last call for participation.


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## rigoletto@ (Sep 13, 2018)

Because Apple don't want to. They want Mach, XNU and stuff.


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