[FireBeyond]

I just completed my first Hackintosh in many years. I have perfectly serviceable iMac in the family room (2015, 32GB, 1TB Fusion), but wanted more.

I have a beautiful case (Corsair 570x mirror black tempered glass on 'all' sides). 8700K, 64GB memory, 4TB of SSDs, Vega 64. Runs just as silently as you could hope (H150 closed loop water cooling).

Like you said, Apple gives you the finger for a lot of things. I've lost track of the number of iPhones, iPads, MBPs between my girlfriend and I (but probably at least five each of the letters, and most of the iPhones). But I cannot stomach, in good faith, the world's richest company charging me $1,000 for 56GB of RAM (8->64) when I could buy high end or even faster memory for $250 for 64GB.

And, following some guides? It "just works". Continuity, Handoff, Apple Watch unlocking, iMessage, Sidecar. Clover Configurator is awesome, and if you want to be/feel even more native, OpenCore is even better (though requires manual work, whereas Clover can have your system booting into macOS in 40 minutes from building your USB).

So could I spec out a new Mac Pro that outpaces this? Sure. As could I grow this machine (it's just been my Windows workhorse for about 18 months).

I still love Apple products, but I don't feel any particular remorse for doing this, versus plonking down what most likely would have been $9,000 for a similar Mac setup.

[turtlebits]

Until you try to update it and doesn’t boot, then spend hours researching guides (that don’t have your exact hardware specs) on the hope you can update.

Then inevitably something doesn’t quite work properly anymore.

[maremp]

Exactly. And the major version upgrades are a pain. Unless you're willing to give your weekend away to figure out how to fix the broken configs, it's better to wait a month or so to see how other, more enthusiastic people have worked around it.

IIRC my first build was with El Capitan, and I tried to follow with all updates, but it was painful every time.

When I was building my Hackintosh, the common advice was to use nvidia GPU, so I got myself a then fresh out GTX 1070. But then soon, Apple decided not to sign the nvidia web driver, so we all are SOL with the support on newer macOS versions.

I was even considering trying to sell my current GPU to replace it with an AMD one, but instead decided to make it work with iGPU and do the GPU-heavy work on Windows.

I would never use or recommend a Hackintosh for any work where you'd expect a reliable machine, let alone using it for work.

But I would also not drop the cash on the insanely priced mac dekstop lineup. I've got a macbook and I will probably buy another one (not convinced because the keyboard fiasco which also affected my machine).

I was not expecting it, but windows 10 is much improved over the windows I knew. I now use it for gaming and some personal projects where GPU matters (game dev, computer vision, machine learning). I still need to get used to it and I sometimes miss some tools (Alfred, Preview.app, iTerm, modifier keys -> cmd > windows). But while macOS seems to have been dropping the ball recently, windows is scoring goals.

I will seriously consider switching back for my next machine, especially if apple keeps doing this stupid stuff. I was also thinking about linux, but I'm not sure if I want to spend time configuring all the little things.

[n42]

I chuckled because that was the last experience I had with Hackintosh before I caved and bought a real Mac (2011). But to be perfectly honest, it is the same experience that I have been having on my 2017 MacBook Pro.

[tekknik]

same here. however with a legit mac you can always netboot to restore so long as you haven’t borked the uefi firmware somehow. this obviously isn’t the case with a hack

[exadeci]

The trick is to update but a few weeks after the update release.

It gives people the time to fix the potential issues.

Also a fun fact, I have a 2012 macbook pro and when High Sierra got released the update would fail on it because I had changed the hdd. They were trying to counter Clover but it took less than a week for the Clover team to find a workaround and I coulnd't update my real macbook pro for months before Apple corrected the issue for me.

[QuotedForTruth]

Does imessage work to send and receive? I had previously seen a build where they said that not working was the only flaw.

[FireBeyond]

It does, with text message forwarding too. I know it had been an issue a while back. The only thing I've heard of currently (which I haven't tested either way) is possibly with the Apple TV app.