this post was submitted on 21 Aug 2023
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What you using all that power for? Gaming? Not likely on Mac, Machine learning? Also not likely with that GPU... Maybe a Photoshop machine? Enjoy that non expandable ram.
For a nice dev machine I get it, nice battery life and watch Netflix on a screen, but it's not like you can't get a same performance machine for the same/lesser price with Dell/Thinkpad and use Linux...
That’s a rather narrow set of use cases. For example, they are audio and video editing powerhouses. Audio in particular is exceptional because of core audio in MacOS.
And upgradable components aren’t something 95% of the population is worried about. Max out what you need when you buy it. My last Mac lasted 8 years with no trouble. And by the time I was ready to upgrade, the bottleneck was mainly the cpu, which in a case of 8 years, that means a new motherboard, and at that point you might as well upgrade the whole computer, as standards have changed and updated.
I have a colleague that spends 90% of their time out of the office on trains and on airplanes. They need to connect to an RDP server, answer emails, and do some InDesign work. Our IT dept manager has the same attitude as you and will only issue them a beefy laptop that weighs twice as much as a macbook and has half the battery. My colleague has tried to explain that compute power is not their primary concern but the IT manager won't listen because he doesn't have the perspective to imagine what it's like to do someone else's job.
As an IT worker, it is more likely that they don't want to deal with the headache of enterprise management of a Mac for just one person.
Just buying a Mac is easy, setting that Mac up to be monitored, managed, and secured centrally is a whole other issue. Especially when none of their current infrastructure supports Mac, because why would it when no one current uses one.
The user is worried about what type of device works best for their specific use. The IT manager is worried about what type of device do I have a licences for anti virus, what device can I audit security settings remotely, what device can I centrally manage updates, etc..
That being said, for personal use there is definitely a niche for Apple products. It just isn't so clear cut when it comes to using those devices in an enterprise setting. And speaking from experience just one person never stays at one person. Once someone gets one, everyone will be saying "well, why can't I get one too?".
Had to smile at your last sentence because there's so much truth to office envy. I was issued a cell phone by my last employer because my position required weekly travel in an area with a diameter of >150 miles, and the people who thought it unfair only worked from the office. Same with a disabled person getting some sort of accommodation, the chicken coop was cackling about unfairness, constantly.
There's nothing more toxic than a group of office workers.
I never said that no one else uses Macs in our office. Our entire marketing department and half the executives use Macs. For whatever reason our IT guy just has a 'sales guys don't get macs' personal policy it seems.
If you think that's too stupid to believe, join the club.
In that case, yeah give the guy a Mac lol. Just had to stand up for poor misunderstood IT guys, but sounds like he is in the wrong. Unfortunately there are quite a few of us that seem to just like telling users no.
Describes this guy pretty much to a T.
Apple silicon has a pretty decent on-board ML subsystem, you can get LLMs to output a respectable number of tokens per second off of it if you have the memory for them. I’m honesty shocked that they haven’t built a little LLM to power Siri