Apple Mac Mini Blog: May 2016

Apple just unveiled a newly designed support site to help users troubleshoot their devices, answer questions and learn more on how to use their products. I checked it and it's nice to see basic information and other tips that you'll be pleased to learn. It gives the right information straight from the source without being too technical.

So, I don't need to buy books? For the most part, it's good education, for it provides a wealthy source of step by step tutorials on how to troubleshoot your devices to avoid going to the Apple Store or calling support when you, yourself can fix it. It's not a replacement for books since books provides a more in depth resource, explaining the details behind the technology.

Just like in life, we can learn something from anybody. No matter what background they have, or no matter how little that he or she had education, we can learn from their valuable experiences. Sometimes, experience is the best teacher.

Check the new support site here: https://support.apple.com.

Sunday, May 1, 2016

Gaming on Macs Will Drastically Change History

Gaming on Macs Will Drastically Change History

Ask every gamer on the planet and they will say Macs suck on gaming. But, if you ask them gaming on iPads or iOS devices like iPhones and they will obviously say it's great because all games on the Apple App Store basically can be played on your iOS devices. Why do games on iOS fare better or even far exceeds on Macs? Well, it's because of their popularity since all games on iPads are essentially free and most very cheap. Games on Macs on the other hand are expensive and heavily depends on Steam, which is a third party gaming online store. The other reason is all iPads are capable for gaming but not on Macs. Some Macs can barely handle triple A games with high GPU requirements. Metal, a low level API to access the GPU power which is very important on gaming, is only available on 2012 Macs and newer (you have to check it's compatibility on their website).

The Metal API is important on Macs to be a serious competitor in the gaming space, but it only gives developers, especially on iOS, the means to port their games to Macs easier. Steam on the other hand is by far the largest game provider on Macs, therefore Steam has to choose Metal to make Macs more viable in gaming. The only problem is game developers wants to port their games also on Windows and Android if they want to make more money, and both of them have the largest market share in the planet. Nobody will make games solely on Macs so Metal is not a good reason for gaming on Macs. From what I’ve heard, Vulkan IS the choice for game developers that solves cross compatibility problems. It has the same lower level access to the GPU, which is Metal but cross platform for Macs, Windows, Linux, Android, and etc.

So, I guess Macs will become a gaming platform and will perform well in the future because of iOS popularity, Metal, Vulkan, ports from iOS to Macs and cheaper pricing.