Five years ago, I wrote about how I had given up on a Mac computer being good for graphic artists. A travesty ? Well, I had a number of beefs but the crucial two were 1)Macs always losing graphic speed tests to Windows machines and 2) was the lack of touchscreen operation on Mac machines. Yes there are stylus pens but they only work on the typepad. So has the situation changed in 5 years?
You can buy Windows Surface for a pretty penny. Or you can buy a graphic tablet from Wacom ranging from $120 tiny Intuous to the 24″ Cintiq for $2569 from Amazon. Or get an Airbar which fits on a MacBook Air and gives you semi-touch screen without the essential 3rd party graphic drivers. Or you can get a new iPad which is designed to replace the Mac – but suddenly a lot of graphic software falls away. Or you can get a 24inch touch screen monitor that works with Macs but only Windows understands all the gestures.
Or you can read this “explanation” by Apple software chief Craig Federighi “explaining” why he’s against the idea of Apple making a touchscreen MacBook.
“We really feel that the ergonomics of using a Mac are that your hands are rested on a surface, and that lifting your arm up to poke a screen is a pretty fatiguing thing to do it has todo with arm fatigue and the experimental nature of touch screen operations. I don’t think we’ve looked at any of the other guys to date and said, how fast can we get there?”
And so we add another nail to the coffin of Mac usage without having to refer to the slow degrading of Apple Safari status which has become essentially non-updated in Windows and lagging behind Chrome and Firefox in its Mac and iOS bailiwicks. Thus, the original article of 5 years ago looks prescient:
And so the conclusion is that Apple’s support of Graphics software is still ipaddling along. Is Apple’s Craig Federighi trying to pull the wool or is this the “new” state of graphic software innovation at Apple. Thus, Alicia I still can’t recommend a Mac for graphic artists.