Hackintosh?
That’s what I’m wondering at this point, although I do expect to have more software issues with it.
Tim Jones is a good resource I think
He has experience with them
1 Like
Although I suspect I’ll be forced to buy an ARM powered Mac just to keep my existing apps alive.
I ran a Hackintosh from 2013-2019 without a single serious issue. Major version OS upgrades (once per year) involved 2-3 tense hours, but I never had any real problems. Late last year I bought a beefy new 16-inch MacBook Pro (which I use exclusively as a desktop in clamshell mode), so I’m done with the Hackintosh thing for a while, but it’s a perfectly viable option.
One caveat relevant to some macOS developers, and possibly other Apple OS developers, is that a Hackintosh is probably not viable if you’re expected to support new OS features immediately, i.e., if you’re expected to run beta versions of the next OS release, because that’s not something I’d ever want to try with a Hackintosh. Typically, a Hackintosh user must wait for the final official OS release and then wait a few weeks more, while the Hackintosh-techno-weenies work through any new problems with getting the OS to run properly on non-Apple hardware, before upgrading. Personally, I always waited a few months. I don’t think you would have a good experience at all if you tried to run OS betas on a Hackintosh.
2 Likes
I have one where the USB receiver crahed and the wheel stopped to work.
The actual one also have the wheel who does not works anymore…
I had to change two times my current MacBook Pro 13" (mid 2014) Power supply because of the cable who cut by itself: one I had to pay for it even if I cryed loud, the second was exchanged for free: both “worked” for two years.
Best Mac I ever bought was 2 years ago - a 2010 Mac Pro with two CPUs. Upgraded it with two six core Xeon X6790 at 3.47 GHz, 96 GB RAM (its 25% faster if you only use 3 memory slots each so I took out 32 GB), two 1 TB SSD, two 8 TB hard disks, Radeon RX560 (uses very little power but does everything I need), USB3, BluRay burner - all for about US$1600 (so might be even cheaper now).
It’s an absolute beast, and most of the time I use less than 5% of its power. I gave half of the power to folding@home, and while I run ten desktops (one for each project I’m working on, eg house hunting, xDev article 1, xDev article 2, Xojo app 1, Xojo app 2, Windows fullscreen, Linux fullscreen, mail & messages, forums, stuff) with many apps and an insane amount of webpages (about a thousand tabs in over 100 windows) and documents open … it doesn’t break a sweat.
Haven’t looked at Hackintosh since …
1 Like
Mind if I ask a couple of questions?
- Do you run Catalina on it?
- Are the 1TB SSDs running raid 0?
I have been thinking about purchasing a newer machine to replace my 2012 MBP, at first I was thinking about purchasing a newer MBP but then I thought I will keep the MBP for when I need the mobility (I have a 2011 and a 2010 MBP too) and buy an iMac but after reading your post you got me wondering if something like your MP would be a better idea.
No Catalina - I could install it with a patcher, but I don’t mind running a version behind … and I still have too much 32bit software that I use. For travel and testing I have a 2014 MacBook Air that I got last year when my 2010 17in MBP died (but I still hope I might be able to resuscitate it somehow - great machine).
I might install Catalina on a second SSD (I have a 256 GB one here from an update to a MacBook Pro) - it’s fantastic how easily you can swap hard disks and SSDs in this machine 
No, one SSD I put in when I got the Mac Pro, the other I took out of my dead MBP.
I also have a confession to make evn though I feel really dumb about it. When I bought the Mac Pro I installed MacOS Sierra on it. I only noticed later that it had a PCIe card with two m2 512 GB SSDs on it that wasn’t in the description (it was a refurb model ordered from a UK supplier, though they didn’t do much refurbishing, and just went with the description on the back sticker, so they didn’t know much about Macs). I couldn’t get it to work even after installing the drivers - it showed in System Profiler but otherwise appeared dead. So I sold it on eBay for about $250 (and of course I described the situation honestly). I later found out that the card (or more precisely the drivers) needed MacOS High Sierra as Sierra did not have support for NVME - well, at least the buyer was very happy (the cards sold on eBay used for around $700 at the time). But I still go 
This happened to me too a while ago when I offered to help a friend to upgrade her mac, and I was the expert LOL
Actually for running Catalina on my Mac Pro OpenCore looks interesting - itisn’t just for Hackintosh, but for older Macs too:
@npalardy - Did you see this? https://twitter.com/b3ll/status/1271170165443424256 It shows that this person had a similar problem to what you’re reporting and solved it… by replacing his monitors.
Which in it’s self is crazy!
I’ve promoted my Dell i7 1080p with Win 10 as my main computer (my Mac is closed next to it in case of something missing) and I have Catalina and High Sierra VMs tested and running in VirtualBox. By the way, I believe that at some point we will see ARM VMs emulated, so we won’t really need to keep buying new expensive hardware just to test some apps, or maybe some guy will port MacOS to some cheap box as we did with Windows. https://www.tomshardware.com/news/windows-10-raspberry-pi-4-arm . My case must differ from yours as my main concern is Windows and Macs are just a luxury piece of software I rarely sell.
1 Like
Yeah, I’ve built my whole career around Mac software, which is why I’m extra salty at the moment, it really feels like the Mac is on it’s way out of the market.
Trouble is, I’m so deep into the Apple API, that trying to port my apps to a different platform, is going to be incredibly hard. I keep taking at a look to see if there might be an easy way to move some of my stuff, but I’ve yet to find a clear and straightforward solution.
I know your pain. We need to create new income streams in the new platforms and trying to make them profitable while still supporting the old ones that have a decreasing curve of profitability. It’s a hard juggling game.
Funny - I feel the opposite: that they finally are getting back in now that Ivy left (and with him that obsession about being thinnest … that was quite reminiscent of an eating disorder).
1 Like
Oh man, one of the advantages I’ve seen slung around is that ARM will enable Apple to build thinner and lighter laptops, which looking at the responses through forums, a vast majority of people want.
Not me, I’d like to see a Pro machine, actually be a Pro machine, in that I mean sustainable performance, connectivity, high quality display with at 2012~2015 refresh rates (looking at you 16" MBP). Upgradable RAM and storage and the headphone jack on the left hand side, so the cable doesn’t snake across the laptop.
My issue is fixed simply by having repositioned monitor thens repositioned them back to where they were
Still havent had time to hook up the 43" and see what joy that brings 
1 Like
You’d probably have to rewrite it in .Net to get similar capabilities
1 Like