[ActorNightly]

Man, Apple fans are still proving the stereotype to be accurate after 20 years.

Ignoring the fact that the Mac OS gets in your way every time you try to do something that Apple doesn't like, with no guarantee that an update won't break anything existing, ignoring the fact that Macs are non repairable, non upgradable, ignoring the fact that they don't support multiple displays flawlessly, I hope you realize that egpu support natively is NEVER coming to Macs, because why the fuck would they enable it when they can just charge you full price for a desktop computer? Apple is built on the sole image that Apple users have money, so buying another Mac Mini or Mac Pro in addition to your laptop is what you are supposed to do.

Android is way ahead of Mac with Android Desktop mode and Samsung Dex, to the point where you don't even need to own a laptop anymore. Ive been using my S24/S25 with lapdock for over 3 years now as a laptop, and it works flawlessly. Apple can easily do this with iPhone, but they won't because that means one less macbook purchase.

[zer0zzz]

> Man, Apple fans are still proving the stereotype to be accurate after 20 years.

Who is this straw man you're flogging?

> Ignoring the fact that the Mac OS gets in your way every time you try to do something that Apple doesn't like, with no guarantee that an update won't break anything existing, ignoring the fact that Macs are non repairable, non upgradable, ignoring the fact that they don't support multiple displays flawlessly,

Lot to unpack there, most of it does not matter to most normies. When I bought my current mini-pc to drive my egpu I didn't focus on any of this stuff. Just about all I looked for was something that can drive a gpu over TB4/5 and has good perf/watt in a small form factor.

> I hope you realize that egpu support natively is NEVER coming to Macs, because why the fuck would they enable it when they can just charge you full price for a desktop computer?

Sounds like you are more hopeful they wont than I am that they will. They've already enabled RDMA over TB5 for ML applications, and they've left their boot loader open enough for the asahi community to reverse engineer tons of functionality.

I do think eventually there will be some form of GPGPU programing popularized on the mac that isn't Metal (gross).

> Apple is built on the sole image that Apple users have money, so buying another Mac Mini or Mac Pro in addition to your laptop is what you are supposed to do.

I think you have a very specific use case in mind, chiefly gaming. There's a lot more eGPUs offer, and it has nothing to do with turning your normie laptop into a sick gaming rig.

> Android is way ahead of Mac with Android Desktop mode and Samsung Dex, to the point where you don't even need to own a laptop anymore. Ive been using my S24/S25 with lapdock for over 3 years now as a laptop, and it works flawlessly. Apple can easily do this with iPhone, but they won't because that means one less macbook purchase.

I fail to see how Android is relevant in this context at all? For one, the arm64 hardware would have to exceed the single thread and perf per watt of an M5 and secondly you'd actually need tools and applications worth using for desktop use.

I am seeing some of the newer AMD 370/395 and Intel Ultra 7/9 socs as being much more of a serious alternative to the M4/5 here. In fact my current eGPU setup is an Ultra 9 mini-pc with an egpu, its just a shame im still on x86.

[ActorNightly]

Mac will appear to give some leeway to fake being dev friendly, but they are not. There is a reason why still Asahi is in its state - lack of any real documentation from Apple. If Apple was dev friendly, they would just bring those people on board and give them the documentation and have them develop a fully working linux for free. But Apple fundamentally DGAF about linux users.

RDMA over Thunderbolt is going to be used only with Mac devices. Apple has a history of keeping things within their own ecosystem. You gotta be insane to think that they are going to just magically allow you to plug in a graphics card and it will work natively.

The point of bringing up Android is because that is what being dev friendly. Samsung or Google have nothing to really gain to enable the desktop mode. But they do it anyway because it increases the usability of their devices. Ask yourself again, if Apple already runs arm on all of its devices, why not enable a desktop mode for the iPhone? Its EXACTLY for the reason to squeeze more money from consumer. Its why they do the thing they do with app store, that why they own all the advertising streams on their devices.

So if you wanna stay deluded about what Apple does, be my guest. Just don't be surprised when nothing turns out like you hoped.

[zer0zzz]

It's a little unclear why you are discussing desktop mode on phones in all this? Seems really irrelevant when the thread is about NV gpus on arm desktops.

When it comes to Apple hardware, they're offering pretty good performance per watt and the machine form factors they are offering with the level of perf they have is where I really start to care (small compact footprint with good perf, runs any kind of unix/unix-like system).

You may well be right, and we may not see productized eGPUs in mass on Apples platforms, but I am liable to go grab a GB10 over some PC tower at that point.

As far as the software stack and OS, its also kind of irrelevant (to me anyways). If the hardware is good and the OS has decent performance for builds and jobs I am going to use it to do my work. The rest of it is just fashion as far as I can tell.

[ActorNightly]

>The rest of it is just fashion as far as I can tell.

EXACTLY.

Apple is a fashion company. They don't care about improving usability of any of their devices. The most important thing is to them is selling a lifestyle.

This is why eGPU will never happen - having an external gpu is too nerdy for a lifestyle of an apple user. Same thing of having a phone plugged into a monitor and keyboard. Thats why all their products are separate. You are meant to buy a iphone for phone things, and iPad for the plane, a Macbook for work and a Mac Pro for any serious compute. Them trying to offer a cheaper solution like eGPU dilutes the lifestyle image.

[zer0zzz]

> Apple is a fashion company. They don't care about improving usability of any of their devices. The most important thing is to them is selling a lifestyle.

I don’t think you read what I said, or you are intentionally being dense. My point is that users and the industry have largely moved on from the modular pc box concept. Those who cling to it do it out of a sense of identity.

> They don't care about improving usability of any of their devices.

Do you have any metrics to back that up? As far as I can see they’ve built what is a pretty good platform that still supports native applications for normal people on hardware that is improving ~.5-1.5x every year. Even if I ran Linux 100% of the time I’d likely go with their (used) hardware.

> having an external gpu is too nerdy for a lifestyle of an apple user

I used to think this, but then when they brought arm64 to laptops they brought macOS not iOS. They did that because the Mac IS for nerds be it for video editing, publishing, software development, Unix it sysadmin stuff etc. Even the last time they brought egpu to the Mac the first time, it was for something as niche as the whole vr wave. I could see them doing it for ml compute in the future. I doubt they will bring graphics along but wouldn’t Be surprised if there’s more developments like the tinygrad driver (which was literally signed by Apple, so it already discounts your absurd claim).

> Same thing of having a phone plugged into a monitor and keyboard. Thats why all their products are separate.

Again, what are you on about with phones? Phones don’t matter.