Don't buy a Mac because there's no grasshopper?

Hey Guys and Gals,

I'm looking into new computers to buy for gradschool, and I'm all set to switch to a Mac, but the ONLY thing keeping me from it currently is the current inability to use grasshopper in OSX. I use grasshopper nearly all the time in my designs, rarely a project without grasshopper, so Im worried it may be annoying switching between boot-camp and parallels or something whenever I want to run rhino with grasshopper. I would hate to spend so much money on a mac and basically have it running windows all the time.

I'm wondering how anyone with a mac uses grasshopper. Are you constantly switching OSX and Windows, having to save files and then move into the other platform or how do you make it worth while for the hastle?

I've seen discussions going back to 2009 about grasshopper beta for OSX, but David has said all resorces are put on the Rhino 5 release so they havent concentrated on the OSX version yet.

Should I just buy a PC (for half the price) and wait another 2-3 years to buy a Mac, assuming that there will be a grasshopper for mac by then?

Advice on your experiences are appreciated, thanks.

Replies are closed for this discussion.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Andrew Haas on March 5, 2012 at 7:15pm

Thanks guys, this has all been pretty informative. I use Rhino 5 64bit. I still cant decide! It would suck to be in Windows bootup all the time because when I am working on a project Im constantly changing music in my itunes or on websites and it would be a machine with some programs on one side and some on the other just complicating things or constantly needing to shut down and boot up.

I think what I may need to do is just wait another year or two before I pitch out $2k for a good MacBP and stick with the PC, getting a decent machine that can hopefully last through the masters program. Some of the Lenovo, Asus and Samsung ultra books seem to have pretty nice designs, and decent specs. The current versions have mixed reviews, but they will probably have most issues addressed by Sept when I buy something... so we'll see. I may rekindle this thread in august to try and convince myself again to get a mac, but its hard to expect anything changing in that time.

thanks again!

Permalink Reply by Dave Johnson on March 6, 2012 at 10:17am

I'm also a die-hard Mac user who loves rhino and grasshopper, and I'm quite happy with the bootcamp way of doing things. Yes, slightly inconvenient sometimes, but it's really a minor thing, for me anyway.

To me, the advantages of having one machine that can be either a Mac or a PC, on demand, FAR outweigh the minor inconveniences.

Permalink Reply by Brian Harms on September 12, 2012 at 1:25am

Have you guys noticed that bootcamped windows 7 has really bad trackpad driver support? THere's something funky about it for sure. On my old macbook pro in XP I could right-click+drag. It wasn't super comfortable, but you could do it. With my 13" mackbook pro (non-retina) it's not physcially possible. There is a split second where it tries to do it - but nope. Kind of sucks to not be able to orbit in rhino or pan in grasshopper (conveniently) without a mouse.

Just my 2 cents.

-Brian

Permalink Reply by Michael Pryor on May 25, 2012 at 4:47pm

dropbox does wonders for for my mac - windows dilemma

Permalink Reply by Miles Miller on February 8, 2013 at 7:41pm

I wouldn't count on a grasshopper for Mac release for several years. Hell, Rhino for mac is still in beta. Even if they do release grasshopper, there are plugins within grasshopper that optimize it, such as Diva and Geco and lunchbox, which are beneficial to architecture and probably won't be available until waaaay down the line after Rhino for Mac and grasshopper for Rhino Mac is done.

That being said, I run Windows on a MBP and it runs Windows flawlessly in bootcamp. I have been building custom PCs for years and my MBP runs Windows better and faster than any setup I have ever done. I don't know what it is about Mac hardware, but it is SUPREME and well worth the extra cost. On my custom builds I frequently get the BSOD and I haven't had it once on bootcamp on my MBP. I recommend shelling out the extra $$ for a MBP.