Apple Silicon

Sadly, BricsCAD wasted so many resources on Mac's version!

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Comments

  • Why wasted ?

    Basically from 2012 to June 2020 many of us had to think Apple is doing everything wrong.
    Since WWDC many unpopular things make a bit more sense now.
    There will be still x86 Intel Macs sold and used for many years to come.

    And what we were told about ARM also looks encouraging for a future with Mac as a 3D platform.

    So I would say every resource Bricsys spent so far in macOS may more likely pay off than ever.

  • Given Bricscad is available in Windows, Mac and Linux I would be very surprised it it is not quite clean programming wise - especially given it runs (more or less) flawlessly on 64 bit only Catalina.
    That would imply porting it from Intel silicon to Apple ARM silicon (which already is used for iPads and iPhones) should not be particularly difficult. The one area of concern to me is how developed the GPU's are in Apple silicon and if Apple silicon can be used in combination with say an AMD GPU.
    As I have a 2015 and 2018 MBP with Intel silicon I can afford to take a risk in moving to Apple Silicon soon after a suitable machine arrives on the market.

  • There won't be any support for AMD or Nvidia GPUs on Apple Silicon.

    Apple Silicon is not just about RISC ARM architecture like ARM server CPUs.
    It's about their "System on a Chip" architecture with CPU+GPU cores and
    many other accelerator cores that share the same memory.
    Apple eliminates previous architectural bottlenecks, which makes it so
    efficient, not just ARM.
    To use Apple Silicon efficient, Software optimized for Intel may need some
    adaptations.

  • Apple just leaped ahead of all other personal computers and this will leave the PC world scrambling to try to make up. They just merged a 1 billion plus user base of iPhones and iPads with the Mac (not to mention AppleTV which which is basically a console). Now developers can leverage the HUGE user base and make a program or game for iPhone/iPad which also works on Mac. If they know how to develop on iPhone they instantly know how to develop on Mac now. Also, now Mac developers can make a program for Mac which can also work on high end iPads too. It may not make since for many Mac programs to work on iPhone too but maybe it would work without some features or something. Once Bricscad works on new Arm Macs they can also make it work on iPad....Uh that will not be a waste of development time. Apple also provides tools to make it easier to transition but not sure how helpful they are.

  • Dear betazero,

    Apple just leaped ahead of all other personal computers and this will leave the PC world scrambling to try to make up ...

    aaah, now I understand - why Apple has a market share of <= 7% in PC area :-)
    And, never try to predict the future, too many great minds always failed & fail on this :-) time will tell, not marketing speech ... :-)

  • Trying to predict the future is fun but this already happened so not really a prediction anymore. Windows has no current way to merge a non-existent Mobile Windows user base into Windows. Apple is freeing the apps from the OS. When Apple pops an M1 chip into an iPad Pro ( inevitable) and apps become universal (Mac or iPad or even iPhone...already happening) the "Mac" user base will merge with iPads/iPhones and that user base starts rising quickly. Yes they have a small market share now but it is still the only PC competitor. You need competition for growth and you should want as much I do that the PC market share to drop and Mac to rise and to maybe never be 50-50 but somewhere closer. Windows needs competition just like Apple does. I now own one of the M1 Macs so I can safely say they made the right move to split from Intel and AMD.

  • Michael Mayer
    edited November 2020

    @Torsten Moses said:

    Apple has a market share of <= 7% in PC area :-)

    Somehow I think they avoid to get more.

    As they would have got a much larger PC market share if they would have continued
    their 2007-2012 desktop lineup. Where the user base was growing and more and more
    typical PC Software was ported to Mac (even Autodesk, ....).

    But instead of bringing a Mac Pro Light or Mac Midi they even degraded the
    (too ?) well selling Mac Mini and later neglected the whole desktop and made hardware
    and software less attractive.
    I can't imagine other than at some point in time, Apple really thought that iOS devices will
    take over and replace the whole desktop market.

    And I think the same for the mobile market, their larger business volume.
    They are happy that there are lots of android users and don't want want the whole market.
    If their market share gets too large, they would just get problems with cartel and competition
    regulations and couldn't do their things the way they want.

  • betazero
    edited November 2020
    I doubt it. I am sure they want more and this change to apple silicon proves that. People still use PCs from 2007 running windows 3.1 or 7 so it skews the number. Apple always had a small share and PCs are still the norm for many buisnesss.
    From 2012 till now they have had the best iMacs they have ever had. So not sure what they stopped in 2012? They brought an Mac Pro lite it’s called an iMac Pro. The new Mac Pro s monitor is rediculius. Not sure why they don’t just take an iMac case and sell it with just the monitor inside. Maybe add an Ssd in there so it’s a monitor and expansion. The apple mouse is there biggest problem. That thing sucks. Works great as a paper weight. Hopefully they design a function over form mouse. Make it the same shape as a Logitech mouse and just use apple colors and some aluminum.

    Apple for years now have been merging macOS with iOS. From the look to apps so really this started maybe 5 years ago or more. You could see what they were planning with merging the two sides of the company devices and macs.
  • Michael Mayer
    edited November 2020

    Yes, iMacs and Macbooks were still reasonably fine during that period.
    Beside Intels freezing progress.

    But beside AiOs, headless Desktops for demanding users were abandoned.
    A pro user does not want an AiO iMac Pro which you can't open to add RAM
    or even simple maintenance to clean dust out or replace thermal paste.
    And expensive relatively slow Xeon CPUs and ECC RAM, glued into a Monitor.

    Until 2012 we had very flexible Mac Pros for any use case in different, reasonable
    price ranges, very compatible to PCs.
    Until 2013 we got only a video station with slow Xeons, not updated for 7 years.
    If a Trash can had 2 CPUs instead of 2 GPUs, that no Software uses, 2x 6 core
    would not only have been much cheaper than the expensive 12 core but also
    faster. Apple had a bad implementation of its featured OpenCL, so no real
    GPU render software and OpenCL abandoned after 3 years, for Metal.
    Mac Mini was downgraded from 4 to 2 cores and not updated.
    It is just since 2017, that we got something halfway capable, iMac Pro, in
    a way we don't want and expensive. 2019 came a basically useful and flexible
    Mac Pro. But ignoring AMD CPUs, with only 30% of available CPU Power and
    all for ridiculous prices.
    2013-2019, there already left so many 3D Pro Users and had to switch to
    Windows to finally get choice for faster consumer CPUs, if ECC and dual socket
    not needed, CUDA by Nvidia, serviceability, ....
    If one needed CAD only, yes, that was ok with Macbooks and iMacs.

    It is just now with the first Apple Silicon Reviews that we really can say, yes,
    there will be a possibility that Apple will offer again powerful hardware and
    get again a useful 3D platform - in the best case.
    I think, overall, Apple "could" even get the "best" 3D platform that way.
    I still feel more save keeping my parachute in form of my PC to jump to Linux
    or Windows in the worst case.

    So is very good to see these promising M1 Benchmarks.
    Still it is obvious that in a market like 3D and CAD, only a part of the software
    that supports Apple will survive OpenGL and kext deprecation and other hurdles
    that Apple already has established or will in the future or going on with
    ridiculous pricing.
    You can imagine that there is lots of discussions in Bricscad's management, if it
    is worth to jump on that Apple train and invest or better abandon Mac support.

  • betazero
    edited November 2020
    I never got into the pro desktops. My theory has always been buy a decent machine and upgrade the whole thing in 3 years. iMacs have a port to upgrade memory but i understand pro where your spending 5 grand and can’t add any internals. Not really sure what there is to add inside anymore other that video cards. Even that can be handled externally....You can add ssd external so that’s no big deal. I can’t imagine why bricscad would drop Mac now. Not when developing for it also opens up the ability for it to run on iPads too. Totally the wrong time to jump off the Mac band wagon.

    Bricscad does not need a powerful machine to run btw so no reason for them to stop developing for Mac. Same with most 3D programs. I run Lumion on my 2017 iMac (in bootcamp) and it could use a bit more power but I have done large sites with lots of landscaping no problem. I may end up getting one final Intel iMac just until Twinmotion gets up to Lumion level. Maybe that will happen soon and I can dump the final Windows program I use. I thought a new iMac was coming out this year but I think they are developing a modified version of the M1 chip to handle the more available power of a always plugged in iMac.

    Most of the problems Apple had with Macs were related to Intel , AMD or there war? with Nvidia...( not really sure what happened there). Now each year Macs can have jumps in power vs little steps.
  • Michael Mayer
    edited November 2020

    My theory has always been buy a decent machine and upgrade the whole thing in 3 years.

    That was what I was used to at PC times, or even replacing earlier.
    But when I got my 2.1 Mac Pro in 2007, which was about 5500€, about double of what I
    would have spend on PC replacements, it was the fastest 3D workstation available for
    half a year. And it was 10 times faster than my last interims PC.
    Because of Apple's special deal with Intel. And when Dell and others finally offered the
    same configuration it was even 50+% more expensive on the PC side.
    But with Intels innovation stagnation, when I want to replace the Mac Pro 3 years later,
    the predecessors were only 40% faster. So I waited and waited.
    In 2012 a replacement would at least be around 100% faster, something that you can
    at least recognize. But before I did, Apple took the Pro from the EU market for electrical
    regulatory reasons, as they had something great in their pipeline - Trash Can.

    I wasn't amused when it was released and waited for an update, until in early 2015
    I had to buy a Trash Can immediately as a Project didn't fit in the 512 MB VRAM anymore
    and Mac Pro 2.1 was kind of a first generation device and limited and obsolete earlier.
    So I had my Mac Pro 2.1 in production, unwanted, for 8 years !
    So it paid off well.
    I never liked my Trash Can. I think it is ugly, not at all what I wanted, but honestly I
    basically could work successfully with it and it wasn't very disturbing.
    But for years there wasn't any hope for a future 3D Apple platform.
    Hence trying the PC.

    Bricscad does not need a powerful machine to run btw so no reason for them to stop developing for Mac. Same with most 3D programs. I run Lumion on my 2017 iMac (in bootcamp) and it could use a bit more power but I have done large sites with lots of landscaping no problem.

    No, CAD, on Bricscad or Vectorworks, doesn't need special workstation power.
    Just 3D Content Creation and Rendering does, because
    a) CPU Rendering was still important and
    b) GPU Rendering developed on PC with Cuda and Mac users where left out

    Most of the problems Apple had with Macs were related to Intel , AMD or there war? with Nvidia...( not really sure what happened there).

    It is not only Intels fault ...
    Development went on on Windows or Linux.
    Lots of problems where just Apple support, changing and deprecating APIs.
    Even if their target was already Metal and Apple Silicon, there was no need to
    behave like that and abandon and neglect their loyalst pro users.

    If there is enough support from Apps, Apple Silicon could change this.
    At least there is a vision for capable hardware now.

  • betazero
    edited November 2020

    Yea that seemed like a rough road you went down. I hated the trash can too but never would I buy it so it really wasn't on my radar. I have just been going thru one iMac to the next and have been happy. My old iMac becomes like my second monitor. I tried using Synegy for a while but just put a trackpad on it and just leave it disconnected ( I really wish the option to use it as a monitor was still there) .

    Now that Apple is taking full control of Mac I think that growth in power will be steady vs very sporadic and slow. It is going to take time though for some of those PC only apps to hopefully start porting over to Mac. I really wish Lumion would but I have a better chance of Twinmotion adding single click grass and becoming viable. For Sketchup and Bricscad though my 2014 iMac is more than enough power. It is really only the 3d rendering like you said where you feel that lack of power. The M1 with multiple GPU cores could get very interesting though. As far as I understand that could make things a lot faster( its essentially like having 4 video cards?) . It makes the memory much more important and when it gets 32 or more verses the 16 max now its going to be much better.

    Adobe is already adding support so I mean with the built in Apple apps + Adobe you have a lot of things covered. Who knows when Autodesk will add support or Sketchup. Actually I need to try Sketchup on M1.... But Sketchup sucks as far as being developed as a program. Its so easy to use but has been the same for like 7+ years. Probably they will just be lazy if it works thru Rosetta 2. But Rosetta will eventually be phased out if it is anything like the Power PC switch. Maybe given 2 years Sketchup will do it. If they were developing Sketchup for iPad they may have a jump start.

  • Apple has full control now.
    And their improvements are more like 20% for each iteration (so far) vs 15%
    per generation as it was for Intel.
    And mainly because they really eliminated some architectural bottlenecks.
    Something Intel/Windows can't do with their legacy support and (legacy?) customers.

    I am not really interested in any real time solution which (most of them) is Windows only.
    I think Lumion and Enscape are far superior in rendering Quality and GI than Twinmotion,
    but Windows only. But Twinmotion a) runs on Mac and b) spreading Entourage is much easier.
    Twinmotion so far is for now the only Mac Solution.
    There are standard GPU Renderers supporting macOS via C4D or Modo but that's not the same
    as such real time packages with direct exchange to CAD.
    But it is hard to see that Unreal, offering the only Mac solution is currently in war with Apple
    about Apple Store provisions.
    And we have seen Apple locking out Nvidia for less problems.
    So I am not 100% confident that we see a Apple Silicon Version of Twinmotion soon or ever.

  • betazero
    edited November 2020

    Well Sketchup works great in M1. Opened a large file and it seems to work flawlessly for the 5 minutes I tried it lol. I took a 10 MB pretty complex model and grabbed the whole thing and copied it 100 times to the right...Not only did it work but I can still zoom around quickly. It took around 30 seconds to complete the copy. Not sure how my iMac would do with that task...

    link to video of the 100 models after copy - LINK

    There was a pause when I zoomed all the way out and some textures were not showing when I was zooming around. Probably a memory limitation with all that data? Did the same test on my 32 gig iMac with 4.2 ghz i7 and Radeon Pro 580 8gb and the MacBook Pro had a slight advantage in orbiting smoothness and zoom speed. They both did bounding boxes for 3d elements that filled in when you zoom in or wait and copied at the same speed. By the way my MacBook was not plugged in when I did that test and video! Just thought about that which is pretty cool.

  • I am really happy with you, offering your M1 tests.

    Vectorworks now committed to fully support Apple Silicon ASAP.
    Before they thought about going Vulkan and MoltenVK to keep cross
    platform support by a single graphics API.
    They rather delay Windows graphics updates if necessary and may go
    true direct X later.
    But that is not something you can expect from cross platform Software
    developers where the Mac user base is just a little percentage.
    (Bricscad ?)

  • betazero
    edited November 2020

    Epics war with Apple is based on greed. They sold a game thru Apple's App Store and tried to bypass paying Apple for in app purchases. Thats just wrong. Especially since they now have their own fledgling App Store with their 1 and only hit. Epic can not just ignore Apple because they own the mobile market. They will need to make peace and I am sure they will because dropping Apple is like like dropping billions of dollars into a toilet. They will not be able to sell their single game on an Apple device without going thru the App Store. Every platform from Xbox to Playstation to whatever has their own App Store that you have to go thru. What were they thinking was going to happen?

    Lumion is by far my favorite. It is literally the only thing on my bootcamp Windows drive. Twinmotion has promise but is a long time away from Lumion level renders. Just having to paint grass kills any possibility for me to use it. It takes way too long and none of my clients are patient. I can pop a house into Lumion and in less than 1 day have great renders. Oh god I hate the Twinmotion GUI.... Lumions isn't perfect but 10 times better. If Lumion would kill the animations in the GUI it would run a little faster.

    Check out the video I added to the Sketchup test :)

  • I think you forget something. Say you had 1 million customers. At 7% that's 70000 Macs and if your software is 500 bucks that 35 million bucks. Some of these pieces of software (like Autocad) are 1600 bucks per year. Thats 112 million bucks per year and that's just based off 70000 worldwide customers. So never feel bad that a developer is developing for a smaller user base. They are making serious money in a worldwide digital market! No shipping costs or printing directions or boxes or CDs etc...Just printing money!

  • I would not look on Epic vs Apple war at all if not Twinmotion was the
    only Mac compatible solution for RT.
    I don't want to run Windows just to get access to a RT solution and
    even don't want to work with a Windows WM on Mac. I did this via
    Parallels in the past with Microstation.

    Unreal Engine is a Monster to use in GUI and UX for architects.
    Game designers are a whole other culture.
    But UE has all necessary real time technologies and Qualities.
    I would normally hate such abstracting and simplifying UIs like Twinmotion,
    but far easier to switch than pure UE.
    There are nice Apps, using all UE4 power but delivering a useful UI/UX,
    like D50 (or D5 ?), but also Windows only.
    So I would be very happy with Twinmotion and a real exchange Plugin for
    Bricscad. Not just an Export and Refresh in Twinmotion, that may mix up
    material assignments and overwriting like with FBX export.

  • @betazero said:
    I think you forget something. Say you had 1 million customers. At 7% that's 70000 Macs and if your software is 500 bucks that 35 million bucks. Some of these pieces of software (like Autocad) are 1600 bucks per year. Thats 112 million bucks per year and that's just based off 70000 worldwide customers. So never feel bad that a developer is developing for a smaller user base. They are making serious money in a worldwide digital market! No shipping costs or printing directions or boxes or CDs etc...Just printing money!

    Yes, but it is non lucrative 3D/CAD market divided by related OS user base vs effort for support
    which may lead to decisions not positive for effected users.

  • betazero
    edited November 2020

    I wouldn't worry about the Apple/Epic thing. Epic tried something dirty and is going to get slapped. They will have to say sorry (pay some money) and move on. UE4 are used for too many games ( not just fortnite ) that the developers that play by the books use it for. Apple won't want to punish those developers because they make money off them. Epic would be unwise to stop exporting to Mac,iphone,ipad and apple tv. They make money off those developed games too...

    I guess we use Bricscad differently. I do my models in Sketchup and use Bricscad as layout since layout is garbage. I xref slices or views as dwg for CDs and then just use Sketchup into Lumion for renders. I really do not have to keep revisiting the renders until final CDs or if there are changes so I do not have to goto Windows very often. The live update thing really never did much for me since all I have to do is click the model and reload. Not sure what D5 or D50 is.

    I am also a game developer so UE 4 is my other life. UE4 runs great on a Mac but it is not fun to try to do arch vis in. I would LOVE it if Twinmotion gets on par with Lumion. It just doesn't feel like I can get the same realism with such a low effort as I can with Lumion. The new render styles in Lumion are great with the real Skys etc. But I guess in the zero bootcamp future I will need to switch. Not doing virtualized windows again. I used to run Autocad like that and hated it yet still did it. I think the UI in Twinmotion just needs to be a bit more normal. It is hard to figure out where to change some settings. Like just materials feels like a chore to get to the settings a want. I do not need pretty pictures for it just make it smaller so I do not have to tab thru pages.

  • @Michael Mayer said:

    @betazero said:
    I think you forget something. Say you had 1 million customers. At 7% that's 70000 Macs and if your software is 500 bucks that 35 million bucks. Some of these pieces of software (like Autocad) are 1600 bucks per year. Thats 112 million bucks per year and that's just based off 70000 worldwide customers. So never feel bad that a developer is developing for a smaller user base. They are making serious money in a worldwide digital market! No shipping costs or printing directions or boxes or CDs etc...Just printing money!

    Yes, but it is non lucrative 3D/CAD market divided by related OS user base vs effort for support
    which may lead to decisions not positive for effected users.

    I think any business where your are selling a digital product and you have a good digital product at a reasonable price it is lucrative. I imagine they can see how many people are downloading the Mac version vs PC and with a very nice working Mac product the hard part is done. Once the couple remaining quirks are ironed out its just maintenance and minor new features. I suppose it comes down to how hard is it to switch complex software to ARM native. I imagine they are writing in Xcode so it may not be as hard as it seems.

  • I am crossing fingers :)

  • Dear Betazero,

    I wouldn't worry about the Apple/Epic thing. Epic tried something dirty and is going to get slapped.

    don't you ovverlook the REAL problem ?
    The AppleStore itself is not the problem ... besides the "small" issue that Apple takes 30% for virtually nothing (I would call that greedy).

    The real problem is, that Apple demands that any developer, using the AppleStore, is NOT allowed to offer their OWN software on any other download/payment channel ... simply illegal, demanding for a monopoly ... and for good reasons, the EU (and as far as I know, also the US) are investigating against Apple, for that practice .... and I really hope, that Apple will be slapped for their misbehaviour, which it clearl y is !

    And I really wonder - why does such a "great" company (as they always claim for themselfes, with 280 billion USD hoarded up outside US, to NOT pay taxes [!!]) need such greedy behaviour ? Didn't they start with the vision to free the PC users from mainframe dominion + slavery ? See their "1984" video ...
    and where are they now ? Imho, Apple does exactly the same now. locking-in their users for the only reason of their profit
    (and not for customers comfort, flexibility etc. etc.) ....

    Sorry for not having better words about ...

    I imagine they are writing in Xcode so it may not be as hard as it seems.

    ??? XCode is the environment - programming uses a programming language, and usually lot of (partially external) libraries ... so the main point is language and related compiler, not the IDE :-)

  • Michael Mayer
    edited November 2020

    AFAIK 30% was the typical common margin for such services.
    Not sure how much Gumroad and such services keep.
    Seems Apple changed it to 15% only now, when earning less than 1 million.
    (Will not help Unreal that much though)

    The real problem is, that Apple demands that any developer, using the AppleStore, is NOT allowed to offer their OWN software on any other download/payment channel ..

    Yes, that is neither nice nor ok.
    But not so uncommon either. Microsoft, Intel, ....

    Xcode is the development environment and Apple delivers APIs.
    If you made use of Apples APIs, kept your App current with Apples recommendations,
    compiling a Universal Binary for Intel and ARM Macs is just a press of a button.
    There are lots of successful examples for even complex Apps.

    The more customized or CPU/GPU specific customization and 3rd party Libraries used,
    the more a bag of hurt.
    I think it is somewhere in the middle. One one hand complex 3D/CAD Apps really need
    3rd party libraries, on the other hand those Apps are not well known for fast adaption
    and code optimization.
    A few managed it though, like Cinema4D and maybe Maya and now they shine.

  • betazero
    edited November 2020

    @Torsten Moses said:
    Dear Betazero,

    I wouldn't worry about the Apple/Epic thing. Epic tried something dirty and is going to get slapped.

    don't you ovverlook the REAL problem ?
    The AppleStore itself is not the problem ... besides the "small" issue that Apple takes 30% for virtually nothing (I would call that greedy).

    >

    They all take 30%. Xbox, Sony, Nintendo, Steam and Apple (well I guess now Apple is 15% for under 1 million a year). Epic is the only one that is less and that's because they are new. They maintain the store, handle downloads/updates of your program and handle the multiplayer connections among other things. Apple had a problem with Epic because Epic tried to sell digital goods inside Fortnite and tried to bypass Apple. Every company would do the same that is listed above. Epic takes a percentage too if you develop on Unreal and your product is successful. I do not use Swift but there is no fee for developing with it. Although it is nothing close to the aid that UE4 provides.

    Every company is about profit. No matter how much they pretend to not be. Maybe indie developers in the beginning just want to get their game out there but if they do not make money the doors close to their business.

    There are plenty of games on Steam which are also on the App Store. They do not not require some kind of exclusivity unless you are developing for Apple Arcade. Like Divinity Original Sin 2 is just one example that comes to mind. I bought it on App Store instead of Steam. Some more quick examples just hitting RTS search - Warhammer 40k: Dawn of War 2 , Total War: Warhammer, Warhammer 2, more Dawn of war stuff, Total War: Three Kingdoms, Might and Magic Chess Royale, Company of Heroes 2 collections, Total War Shogun, Iron Marines...I can keep going but I mean not sure where you got that idea from. Now if you mean on the iPhone/iPad/Apple TV yes there is only one App Store just like Google, Playstation, Xbox, Nintendo etc. PC/Mac are the only platforms that offer choices for which app client you want to use. Another perfect example is Hades Star. I play it on Steam and my Phone and have connected the two devices.

  • Dear betazero :smile:

    even those 15% ... 30% is not the key problem :-) If the developer has the freedom of alternatives.

    The key problem is, that a contract with the AppleStore prohibits any other source of download/selling, and that is not only immoralic and greedy, but especially not legal, such contracted statements are not valid, at least in EU region (no other AppSotre has such limitations !) . but it is monopilistic, and in that sense, it entirely matches Apple's entire behaviour, monopols everywhere (and/or, creating a closed, locked-in environment, "1984" is greeting).
    And that's why

    All woudl be fine, if Appie would give users + developers a choice, where to buy, where to download from ... if Apple would be such a phantastic company, every user & developer would run into their arms, right ? So given freedom of choice would be absolutel yno problem for Apple ...
    but they behave exactly the opposite way, and there are reasons for ...

    From that point of view, it is more than 10 years overdue that EU courts now investigate against Apple & its contract conditions, and I truly hope they will forbig Apple such conditions, restricting the users' + developers' freedom of choice
    (btw., not only Epic is affected, lots of suffering companies have joined)

    many greetings !

  • Dear Michael,

    But not so uncommon either. Microsoft, Intel, ....

    at least, I have never heard of similar restrictions by any other "online shop" ... ok, the percentage is debatable (though 30% IS plain greed);
    but the contracted limitations I do not know from any other store ... (?)

    many greetings !

  • I thought those restrictions are just about in-App-purchases and such things ?

    May got worse but in the past I remember Apps being sold on devs web site
    and alternatively in App Store.
    Where, as Apple never allowed Upgrading, buying directly from devs allowed
    upgrade pricing for newer versions and such.
    Lots of other devs decided against App Store because certain important
    features weren't allowed for Store apps.

  • @Torsten Moses said:
    Dear betazero :smile:

    even those 15% ... 30% is not the key problem :-) If the developer has the freedom of alternatives.

    The key problem is, that a contract with the AppleStore prohibits any other source of download/selling, and that is not only immoralic and greedy, but especially not legal, such contracted statements are not valid, at least in EU region (no other AppSotre has such limitations !) . but it is monopilistic, and in that sense, it entirely matches Apple's entire behaviour, monopols everywhere (and/or, creating a closed, locked-in environment, "1984" is greeting).
    And that's why

    All woudl be fine, if Appie would give users + developers a choice, where to buy, where to download from ... if Apple would be such a phantastic company, every user & developer would run into their arms, right ? So given freedom of choice would be absolutel yno problem for Apple ...
    but they behave exactly the opposite way, and there are reasons for ...

    From that point of view, it is more than 10 years overdue that EU courts now investigate against Apple & its contract conditions, and I truly hope they will forbig Apple such conditions, restricting the users' + developers' freedom of choice
    (btw., not only Epic is affected, lots of suffering companies have joined)

    many greetings !

    But that's not true. Maybe you cant buy digital items outside of the app and then use them inside the app. But you can get the actual game or whatever from wherever its sold

  • BTW...strictly for scientific purposes I played WOW on my laptop (have not played in over a year). The graphics quality is set to 5 which is good in all settings and I went to Icecrown which is currently SUPER busy because a new expansion comes out today and played for 5 hours ish. There were 200+ people attacking mini bosses. I did around 20 of these attacks. Never lost frames, crashed or anything. Didn't get very hot either. There is some heat but it is in an area you dont touch and its not hot enough to cook anything. WOW am I surprised! This was all on wifi too and a testament to wow servers I guess too.

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