[pducks32]

Sure I'll give you that the design is merging, but they are a single company; wouldn't you expect the design to merge. And I—as a software developer—would appreciate more platform convergence. (I'm looking at you SCNLayer). Though I am completely with you when it comes to feature stuff. I know their engineers work very hard but I wish they would spend time looking at some of their interface changes and really work extra hard to help non-techies "get" them. They seem to be doing that on iOS 10.

[Udo]

> wouldn't you expect the design to merge

It depends on what we're talking about. I would expect UI design elements to merge where the capabilities of devices are converging. That's not happening from the desktop since Apple is against desktop touch input; if anything the mobile side should be moving closer to desktop, but that's not happening either. I would also expect UI designs to be merging where innovation is concerned, say if they invested in better desktop/window manager UI, but in actuality all that is happening is the backporting of iOS ideas that are all centered on the fullscreen mode.

> I wish they would spend time looking at some of their interface changes and really work extra hard to help non-techies "get" them

In my experience that's not really a pain point. I have seen several of my clients adopt an OS X-only landscape in their offices (mostly non-technical people). I feel Apple is actually making heavy inroads in office and home use, but for many reasons is losing the support of technically-minded people who - at the risk of sounding self-absorbed - are early warning indicators that the base of the platform is withering significantly.

[pducks32]

Well I think Apple made certain decisions when they started OS X all those years ago that they must now stick to. Like the http2 discussion from the other day. That will keep technically-minded people around. I still believe that macOS is the best machine for me to develop on. I see no close competitor for my work.

And—look—the way the desktop works is not going to be changing drastically any time soon. Their is not much to innovate on, so the obvious next step is to perfect every single interaction and to fine tune every single component of macOS (or Windows or any other OS) to make it faultless. That will keep me and many others around. (And keep trying to innovate and revolutionize in the backroom)

[Udo]

> I still believe that macOS is the best machine for me to develop on.

I'm inclined to agree, but we're starting to hit the zone where I feel I'm using a tool of questionable qualities because of lock-in and the absence of sane competitors. The Unreal Engine IDE runs at 10 fps on my current-gen iMac, an expensive machine based on 2010's hardware and no upgradeable parts that takes minutes to boot up into an increasingly DRM-plagued OS where all the innovation goes into iOS-like features I don't use.

> so the obvious next step is to perfect every single interaction and to fine tune every single component of macOS [...] to make it faultless

I disagree vehemently that this is what's going on. If that was the "problem", my (software) complaints would not exist.

[stonith]

I'm in a very similar situation with a 2013 iMac and UE4. Particularly when using any serious amounts of DebugDraw (such as when the EQS Testing Pawn is used) the performance drops like a stone. I'd get a new Mac, but there's nothing worth paying for, so I'll probably end up trying to get pci-passthrough working with a Windows VM on a Linux base machine.

[pducks32]

Udo, that's fair. I agree. I work with Vulkan and Metal all day and sometimes I do wish things were quicker and I had more control over where resources get allocated.

I imagine like Iron Man where he can divert resources to his weapons from his thrusters and stuff. They do keep adding things that need to run when I wish I could selectively turn some things off.

[Udo]

A little off-topic, but what's your experience with Vulkan so far? Are you doing engine work?

[pducks32]

I've personally been very impressed with Vulkan. I work with VR a lot and it's ability to streamline work over multiple cores has been great. I think Metal is a little easier to get started with but only because it uses the same binding model while Vulkan is very new. But overall it's been great.