Professionals mostly use Macs? Should I go Windows or Mac?

[WatchTheGuitar]

I’m sure the mac advocates making out you can get a mac anywhere and you therefore have effectively no down time aren’t the same people who got their fingers burned buying an M1 chip Mac on day one only to find out a shedload of apps and plugins wouldn't work on them for months.

[BertKoor]

Professionals...

I had a debate with some people in arts (musicians, photographers) what "professional" really means.
Is it about making the most of your money with it?

The end conclusion of that debate was refreshing. It's not about the money. Being a professional (in arts) means that you can deliver a certain quality under normal circumstances. Quality is not depending on "a good day" or whatever excuse you can come up with (inspiration, gear, etc...)

So in that view using Mac or PC is excluded as being a factor of your professionalism.
Which we knew already on page 1 (and 30 years ago)
Which didn't stop the OP from ordering a Mac anyway

[Synthman2000]

The statement in the subject heading is broadly true. I think it is because many people do not know about, have little interest in or want to fiddle with the OS and inside of a PC.

PC users tend to be rather practical people, less afraid of getting stuck in when need be.

Rather irrelevant to quality of work or anything else related to creativity or professionalism.

It could be argued a £4-5K Mac should be more reliable than a £900 PC

However an audio professional is not very likely to use a £900 PC so this is nullified.
I imagine many audio pro's are spending £2.5K on their PC. (I did and this buys you a very serious machine in terms of performance and reliability i.e. My PSU has a 10 year warranty)

With a Mac you are without any question paying for branding. Quite a lot of money actually, I would have a guess something like 50pct of a Macs cost is branding/advertising.

[amyodov]

If there is some computer you can buy in virtually every city large enough – that’s Mac. You find a computer store in Spain, US, Australia, India – and you get a Mac there.

So you're saying that you can't buy a PC in a major city?

There is “a stock Mac” but there is no such thing as "a stock PC to buy" (you can build one yourself, but it’s not an overnight process, and it’s typically not something done with the laptops). If your Dell laptop is running some gig-critical software, and it gets broken – you may have some chances saving your gig by finding another Dell laptop to restore upon (preferably same model), but you are inviting for problems if you get an Asus or Lenovo instead. Different sets of vendor-specific drivers, different preinstalled software, likely even some differently preconfigured OS settings.
Of course you can eventually configure the new PC to bring it to the level of the old one. It won’t happen overnight though. And the last thing you want to learn about your new Dell (bought instead of your old Asus) during the gig is “oh, this one has some Antivirus and Firewall preinstalled, my Asus didn’t, but now the Antivirus urgently wants to update, and the Firewall blocks the requests at unusual protocols for extra safety”.

[amyodov]

I’m sure the mac advocates making out you can get a mac anywhere and you therefore have effectively no down time aren’t the same people who got their fingers burned buying an M1 chip Mac on day one only to find out a shedload of apps and plugins wouldn't work on them for months.

That’s a great point by the way! It’s like buying that Surface tablet and then realizing that not every Windows device is born equal.

[vurt]

If there is some computer you can buy in virtually every city large enough – that’s Mac. You find a computer store in Spain, US, Australia, India – and you get a Mac there.

So you're saying that you can't buy a PC in a major city?

There is “a stock Mac” but there is no such thing as "a stock PC to buy" (you can build one yourself, but it’s not an overnight process, and it’s typically not something done with the laptops). If your Dell laptop is running some gig-critical software, and it gets broken – you may have some chances saving your gig by finding another Dell laptop to restore upon (preferably same model), but you are inviting for problems if you get an Asus or Lenovo instead. Different sets of vendor-specific drivers, different preinstalled software, likely even some differently preconfigured OS settings.
Of course you can eventually configure the new PC to bring it to the level of the old one. It won’t happen overnight though. And the last thing you want to learn about your new Dell (bought instead of your old Asus) during the gig is “oh, this one has some Antivirus and Firewall preinstalled, my Asus didn’t, but now the Antivirus urgently wants to update, and the Firewall blocks the requests at unusual protocols for extra safety”.

a professional in this situation, doesn't wait for the machine to die before seeking a replacement, they have backups and backups of the backups.

being prepared is part of what makes someone a professional.

[Jac459]

I’m sure the mac advocates making out you can get a mac anywhere and you therefore have effectively no down time aren’t the same people who got their fingers burned buying an M1 chip Mac on day one only to find out a shedload of apps and plugins wouldn't work on them for months.

That’s a great point by the way! It’s like buying that Surface tablet and then realizing that not every Windows device is born equal.

That's a legend actually... I use an M1 since 2021 and never had any issue with any plugins (some VSTs are telling me that they use rosetta, but I couldn't care less).

To me the only real reason to buy a mac is their silicon, in particular for laptops....
Because frankly, they are far far ahead in power per watt. Nothing comparable to a surface, it is like comparing a kawasaki Ninja and a bicycle.

For a desktop on the contrary, I think you can have more power at a cheaper price with a PC... And the m2 pro or max are still less powerful than the best intel/amd.


In terms of reliability, my experience on both platforms is very good ... we are not anymore in the 2000s....

[WatchTheGuitar]

That's a legend actually... I use an M1 since 2021 and never had any issue with any plugins (some VSTs are telling me that they use rosetta, but I couldn't care less).

Well the M1 came out end of 2020 and I’m pretty sure there were issues so maybe you just got lucky with the plugins you used, but it’s not a “legend”.

[Jac459]

That's a legend actually... I use an M1 since 2021 and never had any issue with any plugins (some VSTs are telling me that they use rosetta, but I couldn't care less).

Well the M1 came out end of 2020 and I’m pretty sure there were issues so maybe you just got lucky with the plugins you used, but it’s not a “legend”.

Ok but we are in 2023 no? The discussion is for today. I have a loooot of plugins... so maybe I got extremely lucky but can you point me to any plug ins still not working today?

If we go this way, I have all rob papen plugins not working in 4k hdpi in windows. And still not fixed....

[WatchTheGuitar]

Nice goalpost moving, proves you know I’m right.

[Jac459]

Nice goalpost moving, proves you know I’m right.

Yes you are right .

My point to say it is a legend was : "as of now".
It may have been true in 2020 (yes you are right, 100% right if it makes you happy).

But in 2022, 2023, it should not be taken into consideration for a choice, and people mentioning that as a decision factor in 2023 are WRONG.

[WatchTheGuitar]

Nice goalpost moving, proves you know I’m right.

Yes you are right .

My point to say it is a legend was : "as of now".
It may have been true in 2020 (yes you are right, 100% right if it makes you happy).

But in 2022, 2023, it should not be taken into consideration for a choice, and people mentioning that as a decision factor in 2023 are WRONG.

Yes, it always pays to ignore a manufacturer’s track record and when daddy hits you it means he loves you.

[Jac459]

Nice goalpost moving, proves you know I’m right.

Yes you are right .

My point to say it is a legend was : "as of now".
It may have been true in 2020 (yes you are right, 100% right if it makes you happy).

But in 2022, 2023, it should not be taken into consideration for a choice, and people mentioning that as a decision factor in 2023 are WRONG.

Yes, it always pays to ignore a manufacturer’s track record and when daddy hits you it means he loves you.

Well, I didn't notice you were a Windows fan boy or an apple hater or whatever, I would have stopped the discussion earlier. Lol.

If your point is to say that apple is less reliable as a manufacturer as dell, Asus or lenovo, I am curious to see your data...
If your point is to trash apple because they moved to ARM, then you are just poorly informed and don't know that Microsoft has started the move too and the same difficulties will be encountered (google windows RT and windows on ARM).

[WatchTheGuitar]

I think you’ll find it’s a forum so discussion doesn’t stop just because you opt out of it.

My point was simply that you can’t rely on Apple to maintain compatibility as they are capable of pulling the rug out from under their own userbase whenever they feel like it. Yes Windows RT (and back in the day Windows CE) were never fully compatible with desktop Windows, but Microsoft didn’t force everyone to adopt them. And couldn’t. Because if MS did start that caper we could move to Linux etc.

[Jac459]

I think you’ll find it’s a forum so discussion doesn’t stop just because you opt out of it.

So what is your point? Or are you busy googling windows on ARM?

I am not a fan of apple at all, but THE good thing they have done these last 10 years is to really force the market to go to ARM.
Microsoft tried before them but unsuccessfully . But I really hope they will manage this time...