Anybody use Mac?

[4DPB]

I have both. Mac for the tough stuff using Adobe(but drifting into Affinity) and a PC with Flexi for the RIP and basic layouts.

Maybe one of these years I'll get ambitious and do a VM to run Flexi on a Mac. For right now though everything is humming along, just the way I like it.

Agreenbutbdont run a rip via VM. Tried. Not a great experience. Stops suddenly etc. Easier to get a small dedicated PC for rip with Window Pro and RDP

 

[Active Sign]

We've run iMac's for everything but our RIP since 2011. Its the way I like to work. They just last longer for us. Right now im running a used 2017 27inch with upgraded ram and it still hauls.

 

[brycesteiner]

So, I've been really drooling over the Mac studio, I don't know how many nerds we have and how many of those are in the Mac camp, I LOATH windows. Seeing as how coreldraw and I believe the adobe suite runs on the new M1 chips (ultra, ughhh makes me tingle) Im seriously flirting with the idea of getting one.

The two main workstations I have here now are windows machines mad and while they're doing their job...... they do have a tendency of acting LIKE WINDOWS MACHINES and **** will freeze from time to time etc.

Just looking to get some opinions if anybody's tried one.

I've read the thread so far and see the opinions. I went from PC to Mac and then from Adobe to Affinity. Can't say I regret any of those in our corporation.
We are now transitioning some what to the M1. It is tremendously faster in ever aspect - even the lowly MacBook Air blows away my i9 MacBook Pro, and with no fan noise.

The company does a lot of wide format and digital paper printing - lots of mailings and carbonless forms. The one adobe product we can't get away from is Acrobat for the imposition plugin - Quite. It is amazing fast on the M1 Pro.
For our RIPs we have one that drives the wide format Mutoh and that runs Flexi on a 2018 mac Mini using Parallels - not bad at all. The other is an EFI Fiery on a dedicated PC and it's as slow as molasses. We have to clear caches out regularly. I increased the memory by 400% and that helped but still nowhere near as fast as the Mac running Parallels. However, I don't think it would do it running an M1 since that would be 4 to 5 emulation steps. Who knows? It might work well.

The reason we began the transition back in 2010 was because I was tired of constantly buying PCs and dealing with the upgrade headaches. I wanted something to just work. The Macs have had their issues but nothing like Microsoft and third party PCs. I've built many computers over the years and have had multi-thousand dollar ones and they still don't last like Apple. The first Mac we got was 2009 and it's still going. It needs retired because the newest software won't run, but that's the only issue.

 

[greysquirrel]

So, I've been really drooling over the Mac studio, I don't know how many nerds we have and how many of those are in the Mac camp, I LOATH windows. Seeing as how coreldraw and I believe the adobe suite runs on the new M1 chips (ultra, ughhh makes me tingle) Im seriously flirting with the idea of getting one.

The two main workstations I have here now are windows machines mad and while they're doing their job...... they do have a tendency of acting LIKE WINDOWS MACHINES and **** will freeze from time to time etc.

Just looking to get some opinions if anybody's tried one.

Mac mini m1 is fantastic…load up on storage or use apple cloud like me. I just added a studio..2k version to support 3 monitors…honestly the max mini is more than enough with m1

 

[brycesteiner]

We have 4 Macs, one of them is the M1 chip and while it's fast, the computer has issues with our network. Disconnects randomly and when saving large files onto our NAS.

The 3 Intel macs are fine, I'm tempted to return the M1 for an Intel.

One of our Mac Mini M1 had the same issue. I ended up changing some settings in the network and the problems went away, but it was frustrating getting to that point. One is to change the (in Advanced) IP6 to Local Link Only.

 

[Retro Graphics]

I have both. Mac for the tough stuff using Adobe(but drifting into Affinity) and a PC with Flexi for the RIP and basic layouts.

Maybe one of these years I'll get ambitious and do a VM to run Flexi on a Mac. For right now though everything is humming along, just the way I like it.

I think the new version of Flexi is supported on Mac now.

 

[bigwow]

Completely Mac based shop - Lacie servers, Mac workstations, Mac print server using a Caldera RIP, vinyl cutters powered by a Mac and SignCut Pro - updates to printers / cutters done via BootCamp.

 

[greysquirrel]

We have 4 Macs, one of them is the M1 chip and while it's fast, the computer has issues with our network. Disconnects randomly and when saving large files onto our NAS.

The 3 Intel macs are fine, I'm tempted to return the M1 for an Intel.

Why use a NAS? iCloud will share to all macs on network?

 

[brycesteiner]

Why use a NAS? iCloud will share to all macs on network?

We use Dropbox, iCloud, and a file server for storage. You can never have too much backup when it comes to your data, not to mention that you can access your files remotely. Fast business internet is too pricy to run all computers off the cloud - and I don't think it's reliable enough to not have local copies of everthing.

 

[Dan360]

One of our Mac Mini M1 had the same issue. I ended up changing some settings in the network and the problems went away, but it was frustrating getting to that point. One is to change the (in Advanced) IP6 to Local Link Only.

I tried this as well but didn't work for me unfortunately

Why use a NAS? iCloud will share to all macs on network?

We have more PCs on our network than Macs, the Macs are just for the designers, some of them also have PCs.

 

[brycesteiner]

I tried this as well but didn't work for me unfortunately

The other thing that I did that actually did fix the issue was UNCHECK "Limit IP Address Tracking"

That has not been an issue on anything but the Mac Minis but everyone it seemed to fix the problem. I had even purchased an external USB C ethernet adapter thinking that it might be hardware, but that did not fix the problem.

 

[Dan360]

The other thing that I did that actually did fix the issue was UNCHECK "Limit IP Address Tracking" View attachment 160138
That has not been an issue on anything but the Mac Minis but everyone it seemed to fix the problem. I had even purchased an external USB C ethernet adapter thinking that it might be hardware, but that did not fix the problem.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot. I was reading that it might be to do with the NAS SMB setup, that was gonna be my next attempt.

Did you also find that Adobe products didn't run very well? The latest updates helped a bit but they crash a lot more than they do on the Intels.

 

[Del Vanderver]

So, I've been really drooling over the Mac studio, I don't know how many nerds we have and how many of those are in the Mac camp, I LOATH windows. Seeing as how coreldraw and I believe the adobe suite runs on the new M1 chips (ultra, ughhh makes me tingle) Im seriously flirting with the idea of getting one.

The two main workstations I have here now are windows machines mad and while they're doing their job...... they do have a tendency of acting LIKE WINDOWS MACHINES and **** will freeze from time to time etc.

Just looking to get some opinions if anybody's tried one.

I have been using Macs since 1998 and I would highly recommend a Mac over a Windows machine. I have and do use both, but the Mac is far superior in so many ways. Those Windows users who would disagree probably have not used a Mac to any extent.

 

[Gino]

My gerber machine was basically a mac machine.

Other than that, I've always been PC. What is so much better about a mac over a pc or vice versa ?? I really don't want opinions or emotional feelings, but facts to back up what is being compared.

 

[netsol]

we have had this disagreement for a VERY LONG TIME
i remember when a friend in the business got a cease and desist letter and the county sheriff made him remote his yellow plastic "pineapple computers" sign
i imagine a few of you remember this (very early apple clone)

 

[Johnny Best]

Hunter Biden like Mac laptops.

 

[Gino]

And trump liked Big Mac's................. )))) )

 

[Notarealsignguy]

and it showed.........

 

[GAC05]

Hunter Biden like Mac laptops.

I suppose razoring out lines of coke would be easier on that fine aluminium alloy 6061 case Apple uses vs a cheap plastic Windows laptop.

 

[Johnny Best]

Plus it has a good camera to make porn movies.