[eight_ender]

It's more nuanced than that. Nvidia can write the drivers but releasing them without the blessing of Apple blows away any chance of them getting that sweet GPU contract back.

Nvidia doesn't have much of a real world application outside of GPUs in enclosures to keep the drivers alive. The reason to keep drivers ready is the potential for a very large contract from Apple.

[etaioinshrdlu]

Word on the street is that Nvidia didn't get much value ($) out of working with Apple, so perhaps both parties aren't super interested.

Same story with Nvidia and gaming consoles - last few gens of consoles have not used Nvidia chips and Nvidia doesn't see it as a big loss. The margins must be too low.

Nvidia seems to aim for higher margin products these days with scientific computing/data center/deep learning/hardcore gaming.

[ksec]

>Nvidia seems to aim for higher margin products these days with scientific computing/data center/deep learning/hardcore gaming.

Which is a problem. No (Real) Games on Mac, No Deep Learning/ Scientific Computing on Mac.

Mac is now left with Programming, and Video / Graphics Editing.

May be Apple's strategy for Mac is to milk it for as long as possible. They don't see it as a platform for growth ( Despite having plenty of room ).

[mcv]

It seems to me like Apple has been on the road to slowly abandoning the Mac for quite some time. Newer Macbooks are unpopular, updates to OS X have problems, and on the whole, the platform just doesn't get much love from Apple. They want us all on iOS.

I'll be moving to Linux instead.

[omnimus]

I think only apple ally is Adobe. If you want to do pro design or video you need adobe. Adobe will never release on Linux so if you dont want to use privacy killing cloud os like windows 10 then you are left with mac.

Hackintosh is way many people are taking for those reasons.

[scarface74]

The “newer MacBooks” are unpopular is just a meme in the tech bubble. While Apple will stop reporting unit sells next quarter, they just posted last quarters numbers. There is no indication that they are “unpopular”.

[mcv]

Maybe they still sell, but I know of nobody who is enthusiastic about them. People used to love them.

[scarface74]

Why should we pay more credence to the anecdotal “people you know” instead of the reported sales volumes?

[etaioinshrdlu]

It's a little funny how stable the desktop ecosystem has been for 10 (or maybe 30?) years.

Mac gaming still sucks, EE/ME/Enterprise engineers use windows. Web devs and Artists use macs. Academics and scientists use Linux.

These ecosystems are so stable now that I don't see it changing.

Granted, it could change, but they would have to really try... And Apple has shown decreasing vision for the Mac platform over time.

[cronix]

> Mac is now left with Programming, and Video / Graphics Editing.

You forgot Audio, which is HUGE on the Mac.

[javagram]

“Same story with Nvidia and gaming consoles - last few gens of consoles have not used Nvidia chips and Nvidia doesn't see it as a big loss. The margins must be too low.“

The Nintendo Switch uses a NVIDIA Tegra, and NVIDIA put a decent amount of work into selling it - the NVIDIA Shield TV console is basically a tech demo for the thing after all.

[supertrope]

Is Apple still pissed about defective Nvidia 8600M GT laptop GPUs?

[scarface74]

I find that to be an unsubstantiated excuse. There is nothing stopping Nvidia from writing its own driver for macOS.

[saagarjha]

Does NVIDIA actually have a contract with Apple? I was under the impression that Apple silently tolerated them, and that they just released drivers on their website for eGPUs.