4K should be fine at least by the next models. The 15" rmbp is advertised to support 4K, and its base model uses integrated graphics. It's just that there is a significant divide in terms of where diminishing returns kick in when comparing the majority of users to those who do things that really stress the gpu.
I look at 4K as new technology that the community hasn't gotten a good grasp on yet. Thus I'm conservative when it comes to suggesting that today's integrated GPUs are able to deliver a good user experience. I'd feel much better being able to actually use a 4K screen for a bit.
Unfortunately I come across a lot of people spreading bad information as to what benefits what. I clear up what I can. It's annoying to see others suggest people strain their budgets on things that will will not be really meaningful or noticeable in their regular use, such as not budgeting for what should be essential peripherals due to their not being as exciting.
Backup solutions being one thing people neglect.
On the other hand my big problem with GPUs is that performance here is discounted even though Apple and developers continue to leverage the GPUs more and more. If you are someone like me, that is a person that keeps his PC investments for a long while, it really pays to pay attention to GPU performance as it keeps hardware viable for as long as possible.
I know you dislike NVidia, and that's fine. I would point out that they have historically spent a lot more on value added additions.
Part of the dislike comes from their attitude to driver support in Linux, something that has nothing to do with Apple. The bigger issue is that I'd don't see much of a future for NVidia if they can't get their act together with integrated processors SoC. Let's face it with the arrival of Haswell and even better AMD integrated chips, the need for discrete GPUs are quickly going away for mainstream users. You then have the likes of NVidia relying up in gamers and technical users which isn't much to sustain NVidia.
Much like Apple they write software with little to no licensing fees to sell their hardware. That is part of how they're able to charge those markups. They did gimp the double precision math on some of their gaming gpus, which is annoying. It's a way of ensuring a certain minimum sale.
It is also at odd with the way Apple wants to be able to leverage GPUs.
I suspect AMD has less to lose when it comes to licensing their firepro brand. Quadro and Tesla cards account account for a huge percentage of NVidia's profits relative to their volume, which is fairly low. Marvin linked it once, but I can't find the link.
I rather see AMD having much to gain. AMDs GPUs really are pretty good and stack up well against NVidia chips. If their team up with Apple delivers solid drivers and reliable performance I see a big win for AMD.
I am not the one to provide informed opinions about catia or autocad. I have some basic familiarity, just not enough to provide any meaningful insight. For example is it just
2D isn't a problem these days for things of moderate complexity. It is more advance modeling that burns up horsepower.
I'm guessing if they use nVidia on the rMBP, it'll be the 850M. I take it that should be powerful enough to handle 4K.
4K at this point relates to two things, drivers and outputs. The current rMBP supports 4K at 60hz, which is the typical concern. Some things only support it at 30hz. Choice of gpus might have a greater effect on whether you can effectively game on a screen of that resolution or work with applications that make extensive use of non-trivial OpenGL functions. By fine I was referring to non-trivial.
Quote:
Originally Posted by wizard69
I look at 4K as new technology that the community hasn't gotten a good grasp on yet. Thus I'm conservative when it comes to suggesting that today's integrated GPUs are able to deliver a good user experience. I'd feel much better being able to actually use a 4K screen for a bit.
It is fragmented. The Airs, imacs, and minis lack thunderbolt 2, so they don't have displayport 1.2 and MST. It also matters that the combination works. There isn't a clear specification on how to implement MST. One of your /s favorite sites /end s had an article about that a few months ago.
Quote:
Backup solutions being one thing people neglect.
That is an extremely common one. I see the issue as being that people are susceptible to marketing. There isn't any coolness factor in backups, unless you're really nerdy like me.
Quote:
On the other hand my big problem with GPUs is that performance here is discounted even though Apple and developers continue to leverage the GPUs more and more. If you are someone like me, that is a person that keeps his PC investments for a long while, it really pays to pay attention to GPU performance as it keeps hardware viable for as long as possible.
It then becomes an issue of what matters within that application and whether one option provides a meaningful difference over another. There are many people who believe that gpu is of the highest priority when they use software that makes use of it in a very limited way. There's also the matter of in the future what version of what will be required. Does something require OpenCL 1.2 with its inception? Then there are many things that will not work. Given the slow adoption in some critical code areas with aging code bases, I wouldn't focus too heavily on it. Then there are some things where it doesn't really matter what gpu if you're buying a recent machine. In some cases the code runs through OpenCL calls or compute shaders simply because it's well suited to the gpu. Given some of the speed multipliers, it doesn't take much to be viable. This comes up frequently with creative cloud users.
Quote:
Part of the dislike comes from their attitude to driver support in Linux, something that has nothing to do with Apple. The bigger issue is that I'd don't see much of a future for NVidia if they can't get their act together with integrated processors SoC. Let's face it with the arrival of Haswell and even better AMD integrated chips, the need for discrete GPUs are quickly going away for mainstream users. You then have the likes of NVidia relying up in gamers and technical users which isn't much to sustain NVidia.
The predicted problem is that gamers and those building compute clusters won't provide enough volume to overcome development costs. I can't comment on SoCs because I haven't kept up with their Tegras.
Quote:
It is also at odd with the way Apple wants to be able to leverage GPUs.
I rather see AMD having much to gain. AMDs GPUs really are pretty good and stack up well against NVidia chips. If their team up with Apple delivers solid drivers and reliable performance I see a big win for AMD.
Well they do have a guaranteed sale of 2 gpus with each system. I think discrete graphics will disappear from the notebooks in 2-3 cycles if intel keeps making improvements. The imacs may retain them, but at their high end, the 780m is considerably faster than a 750m.
Quote:
2D isn't a problem these days for things of moderate complexity. It is more advance modeling that burns up horsepower.
I was thinking of more than just CAD. That's why I said OpenGL.
So apparently the 880M isn't all that impressive although it is somewhat more power efficient. I thought the wait to Maxwell was going to be fairly decent but I guess I was wrong.
So apparently the 880M isn't all that impressive although it is somewhat more power efficient. I thought the wait to Maxwell was going to be fairly decent but I guess I was wrong.
The 880M is still Kepler. It looks like the ones for laptops will be Maxwell though:
The chart there says only 15% improvement for the 880M vs 780M but 60% for the 850M vs 750M. They always claim more than it turns out but even taking a chunk out of the 60% would be a decent improvement over last year. If Intel hasn't bumped Iris Pro up higher with the Haswell Refresh, the 850M will push further ahead and make the higher-end MBPs more compelling.
The chart there says only 15% improvement for the 880M vs 780M but 60% for the 850M vs 750M. They always claim more than it turns out but even taking a chunk out of the 60% would be a decent improvement over last year. If Intel hasn't bumped Iris Pro up higher with the Haswell Refresh, the 850M will push further ahead and make the higher-end MBPs more compelling.
So wait... I thought the 800M series was Maxwell, no? Anyway it looks like as you go up, the performance percentage decreases from last year though having said that, it is a good thing for the lower models.
So wait... I thought the 800M series was Maxwell, no? Anyway it looks like as you go up, the performance percentage decreases from last year though having said that, it is a good thing for the lower models.
That link says NVidia has made the mobile chips a mix of both Kepler and Maxwell and some models even have variants of both so you can get an 860M in either architecture but they are configured to perform the same. It doesn't really matter as long as the performance is higher and the power usage and heat output low.
The chart there says only 15% improvement for the 880M vs 780M but 60% for the 850M vs 750M. They always claim more than it turns out but even taking a chunk out of the 60% would be a decent improvement over last year. If Intel hasn't bumped Iris Pro up higher with the Haswell Refresh, the 850M will push further ahead and make the higher-end MBPs more compelling.
It would surprise me if Apple changed to the 850m on the same cpu generation. The 2011 version of that was nearly identical. It was a higher clocked 6750m, and obviously the 6490m went away. The 850M is suggested as being Maxwell in the article. I don't think Apple would make that big of a bump without a change in cpu generation. It goes against their past patterns. You may be waiting until fall or next year to see Maxwell.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Winter
So wait... I thought the 800M series was Maxwell, no? Anyway it looks like as you go up, the performance percentage decreases from last year though having said that, it is a good thing for the lower models.
It's never defined by series. Kepler initially shipped alongside some rebranded Fermi cards.
You may be waiting until fall or next year to see Maxwell.
I'd say Haswell Refresh with Iris Pro still at the entry level and 850M in the higher models. Iris Pro may or may not be improved. This would be in the April-June timeframe.
I'd say Haswell Refresh with Iris Pro still at the entry level and 850M in the higher models. Iris Pro may or may not be improved. This would be in the April-June timeframe.
You've been right on the last few. We'll see who is right this time. It's just on the $2500 model. They probably sell far fewer there compared to the base model due to its price. That it dropped to $2000 means they were trying to get closer to the old starting price on the 15" models. I don't personally think they would bother with it for the high end only. If discrete graphics remained on all 15" models, I would be in agreement.
It would surprise me if Apple changed to the 850m on the same cpu generation. The 2011 version of that was nearly identical. It was a higher clocked 6750m, and obviously the 6490m went away. The 850M is suggested as being Maxwell in the article. I don't think Apple would make that big of a bump without a change in cpu generation. It goes against their past patterns. You may be waiting until fall or next year to see Maxwell.
That may be true, that is past history has shown us modest GPU interest by Apple. But what if the haswell refresh is as lame as some have indicated, Apple would need something to stimulate and draw interests for the back to school sales push that happens over the summer. A significantly faster GPU would be something to crow about.
It's never defined by series. Kepler initially shipped alongside some rebranded Fermi cards.
Honestly I think the marketing of GPU's should be investigated due to obviously deceptive practices. You can't tell anymore what you are getting by model number. At the very least confusing the customer is never a old policy and this thread highlights a bit of confusion.
That may be true, that is past history has shown us modest GPU interest by Apple. But what if the haswell refresh is as lame as some have indicated, Apple would need something to stimulate and draw interests for the back to school sales push that happens over the summer. A significantly faster GPU would be something to crow about.
In 2011 they bumped it to a higher clocked version of the same thing, but the bump from intel wasn't out until the back to school season was already over. I'm skeptical regarding what portion of back to school shoppers opts for the $2500 model. Kids often grossly over-estimate what they'll need for a college computer. I typically tell them that if their program requires anything heavy, it will be in the upper division, at which point computer lab workstations, which they pay a fee to use anyway, will be faster than any notebook they purchased 2 year prior. They have been fairly consistent about keeping significant changes aligned with cpu changes. This is probably to align them with changes in the overall logic board assembly.
Quote:
Honestly I think the marketing of GPU's should be investigated due to obviously deceptive practices. You can't tell anymore what you are getting by model number. At the very least confusing the customer is never a old policy and this thread highlights a bit of confusion.
I'm not sure what to say there. Their naming conventions aren't really regulated. it's just fuzzy branding, although I find it irritating. If it was something like a food product, they would be under some sort of investigation.
The Mini's still untouched and the iMac still lacks Thunderbolt 2, but today we got....the iPad 4. Again.
I'm not sure why people are so obsessed about Apples upgrading their base full size iPad to the iPad4. for people in that market segment it is a huge update. I personally have no interest but that isn't a reason to damn the relaunch.
As for the iMacs, Mini and TB2; I suspect that the TB2 hardware is one of the things that delayed the Mac Pro for so long. You would think that by this time though production would be ramped up. Given that the iMac and Mini could relaunch anytime.
It's always been hard to tell what's going on inside Apple. But the company has become much harder to figure out since the Jobs era.
Honestly I don't see a huge change here. Just look at the history of the Mini and iMacs. The wait for the new Mini has been long but it isn't the longest one on record.
We had silence for more than half of 2013, and then a whole bunch of product updates late in the year.
Perhaps Jobs' fiery temper really did bring stuff out faster than otherwise.
That is unadulterated BS. Jobs was very clear about how long it took them to get the iPhone out the door. More so he publicly stated that he was very pleased with products that have not launched. Apparently he was trying to address dissatisfaction within the company over the retargeting the group that developed iOS towards the iPhone instead of a tablet. It literally took them years after the iPhone launch to put the iPad on the market. If you look at the overall time from before the iPhone switch until the iPad launch it was over a half a decade.
Im not sure where all this crap about Apple needing to crap out innovative products every year like clock work comes from. it is worthless nonsense as it was never done when Steve was running things. However with Steve gone Apple is expected to accomplish things it never accomplished under Steve's leadership. Frankly it is even more astonishing to hear this malarky when Apple has been delivering solid products and updates ever since Steve's death.
We know 4K is being rolled out in the OS, so it's likely that Apple's waiting on 4K to upgrade the iMacs with TB2.
Could that be the holdup with the Mini as well?
The primary reason to support TB2 on the iMac or even the Mini for that matter, is to provide fast access to storage devices.
Does the Mini's target market care about 4K?
Probably not. Then again you have to assume that the target market is representative via one prototype. in a nut shell 4K on the Mini isn't a big deal for me.
Im not sure where all this crap about Apple needing to crap out innovative products every year like clock work comes from. it is worthless nonsense as it was never done when Steve was running things. However with Steve gone Apple is expected to accomplish things it never accomplished under Steve's leadership. Frankly it is even more astonishing to hear this malarky when Apple has been delivering solid products and updates ever since Steve's death.
Personally, I've always thought the iWatch and iTV leaks were simply Columbus-level distractions from whatever else Apple is planning to debut.
I agree that it takes several years between "home-run" products and expectations for the Next Big Thing are a little out of hand.
That said, I'm only asking about Mac updates. The Mini doesn't seem to be a big deal to update, and Apple certainly isn't going to debut new tech on the Mac model they love to hate. So where's my new Mini already?
Also, I had thought with Cook supposedly being the channel genius, the iMac would be far ahead of the curve.
Sure, when they come Apple's will probably be more refined and better supported, but I'm still stunned that they introduced the Pro without a 4K screen to go with it. Like I said, the moves are just a bit hard to figure out.
Sure, when they come Apple's will probably be more refined and better supported, but I'm still stunned that they introduced the Pro without a 4K screen to go with it. Like I said, the moves are just a bit hard to figure out.
When I look at Apple's displays I see the captive displays built into the imac and notebooks along with the thunderbolt display, which is really designed as a display + dock. Its design may change with the mac pro also taking on thunderbolt, but the purpose of the prior one was pretty clear. They maintained the prior Cinema display for some time to ensure some compliant option for the older mac pro. When it comes to 4K, Dell's 24" IPS display started around $1400. It dropped to $1200. They have one under $1000 that uses a TN panel. In Apple's case they have already inched up the starting prices on imacs without even transitioning to ssds as standard features. I don't see 4K coming until they can absorb the cost within their desired margins at existing price points. Beyond that I don't know whether they're set on maintaining the existing sizes. They could go to 23" and 28". I don't expect them to go down on screen real estate due to the size of some components like the top gpus used in the 27" model. It isn't likely to go to integrated graphics over the next few cycles given the relative performance gap between a 780M and iris pro regardless of how you spin it. Even in the case of the 650M, it only looks comparable if benchmarks are cherry picked. It was considered good enough to sell at $2000.
Personally, I've always thought the iWatch and iTV leaks were simply Columbus-level distractions from whatever else Apple is planning to debut.
I agree that it takes several years between "home-run" products and expectations for the Next Big Thing are a little out of hand.
Yes out of hand is a good way to say that.
That said, I'm only asking about Mac updates. The Mini doesn't seem to be a big deal to update, and Apple certainly isn't going to debut new tech on the Mac model they love to hate. So where's my new Mini already?
Where's the Mini, that is what this thread is all about. Unfortunately all we have is speculation. I'd. Like to think we are headed for a major overhaul.
Also, I had thought with Cook supposedly being the channel genius, the iMac would be far ahead of the curve.
Instead, we've got Dell debuting 4K screens first. :err:
One only needs to look at the Mac Pro to realize that Apple hasn't gotten 4K to the point that shipping on an iMac is possible.
Sure, when they come Apple's will probably be more refined and better supported, but I'm still stunned that they introduced the Pro without a 4K screen to go with it. Like I said, the moves are just a bit hard to figure out.
I'm not convinced it is that hard to figure out. It is pretty obvious that the Mac operating system is not ready for 4K. At best they are delivering hardware and software suitable for early adopters. As for the Mac Pro they had to ship at some point as the market was getting a bit restless.
So in a nut shell the on,y thing I don't understand is the huge delay for the Mini. I have all sorts of explanations that have no basis in reality, I just focus on the big update because it keeps me in a positive frame of mind.
Comments
I'm guessing if they use nVidia on the rMBP, it'll be the 850M. I take it that should be powerful enough to handle 4K.
On the other hand my big problem with GPUs is that performance here is discounted even though Apple and developers continue to leverage the GPUs more and more. If you are someone like me, that is a person that keeps his PC investments for a long while, it really pays to pay attention to GPU performance as it keeps hardware viable for as long as possible. Part of the dislike comes from their attitude to driver support in Linux, something that has nothing to do with Apple. The bigger issue is that I'd don't see much of a future for NVidia if they can't get their act together with integrated processors SoC. Let's face it with the arrival of Haswell and even better AMD integrated chips, the need for discrete GPUs are quickly going away for mainstream users. You then have the likes of NVidia relying up in gamers and technical users which isn't much to sustain NVidia. It is also at odd with the way Apple wants to be able to leverage GPUs. I rather see AMD having much to gain. AMDs GPUs really are pretty good and stack up well against NVidia chips. If their team up with Apple delivers solid drivers and reliable performance I see a big win for AMD. 2D isn't a problem these days for things of moderate complexity. It is more advance modeling that burns up horsepower.
I'm guessing if they use nVidia on the rMBP, it'll be the 850M. I take it that should be powerful enough to handle 4K.
4K at this point relates to two things, drivers and outputs. The current rMBP supports 4K at 60hz, which is the typical concern. Some things only support it at 30hz. Choice of gpus might have a greater effect on whether you can effectively game on a screen of that resolution or work with applications that make extensive use of non-trivial OpenGL functions. By fine I was referring to non-trivial.
I look at 4K as new technology that the community hasn't gotten a good grasp on yet. Thus I'm conservative when it comes to suggesting that today's integrated GPUs are able to deliver a good user experience. I'd feel much better being able to actually use a 4K screen for a bit.
It is fragmented. The Airs, imacs, and minis lack thunderbolt 2, so they don't have displayport 1.2 and MST. It also matters that the combination works. There isn't a clear specification on how to implement MST. One of your /s favorite sites /end s had an article about that a few months ago.
That is an extremely common one. I see the issue as being that people are susceptible to marketing. There isn't any coolness factor in backups, unless you're really nerdy like me.
On the other hand my big problem with GPUs is that performance here is discounted even though Apple and developers continue to leverage the GPUs more and more. If you are someone like me, that is a person that keeps his PC investments for a long while, it really pays to pay attention to GPU performance as it keeps hardware viable for as long as possible.
It then becomes an issue of what matters within that application and whether one option provides a meaningful difference over another. There are many people who believe that gpu is of the highest priority when they use software that makes use of it in a very limited way. There's also the matter of in the future what version of what will be required. Does something require OpenCL 1.2 with its inception? Then there are many things that will not work. Given the slow adoption in some critical code areas with aging code bases, I wouldn't focus too heavily on it. Then there are some things where it doesn't really matter what gpu if you're buying a recent machine. In some cases the code runs through OpenCL calls or compute shaders simply because it's well suited to the gpu. Given some of the speed multipliers, it doesn't take much to be viable. This comes up frequently with creative cloud users.
The predicted problem is that gamers and those building compute clusters won't provide enough volume to overcome development costs. I can't comment on SoCs because I haven't kept up with their Tegras.
Quote:
It is also at odd with the way Apple wants to be able to leverage GPUs.
I rather see AMD having much to gain. AMDs GPUs really are pretty good and stack up well against NVidia chips. If their team up with Apple delivers solid drivers and reliable performance I see a big win for AMD.
Well they do have a guaranteed sale of 2 gpus with each system. I think discrete graphics will disappear from the notebooks in 2-3 cycles if intel keeps making improvements. The imacs may retain them, but at their high end, the 780m is considerably faster than a 750m.
2D isn't a problem these days for things of moderate complexity. It is more advance modeling that burns up horsepower.
I was thinking of more than just CAD. That's why I said OpenGL.
The 880M is still Kepler. It looks like the ones for laptops will be Maxwell though:
http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/178351-nvidias-gtx-800m-brings-improved-kepler-and-maxwell-cores-to-mobile-new-battery-boost-driver-to-double-gaming-battery-life
The chart there says only 15% improvement for the 880M vs 780M but 60% for the 850M vs 750M. They always claim more than it turns out but even taking a chunk out of the 60% would be a decent improvement over last year. If Intel hasn't bumped Iris Pro up higher with the Haswell Refresh, the 850M will push further ahead and make the higher-end MBPs more compelling.
So wait... I thought the 800M series was Maxwell, no? Anyway it looks like as you go up, the performance percentage decreases from last year though having said that, it is a good thing for the lower models.
That link says NVidia has made the mobile chips a mix of both Kepler and Maxwell and some models even have variants of both so you can get an 860M in either architecture but they are configured to perform the same. It doesn't really matter as long as the performance is higher and the power usage and heat output low.
The chart there says only 15% improvement for the 880M vs 780M but 60% for the 850M vs 750M. They always claim more than it turns out but even taking a chunk out of the 60% would be a decent improvement over last year. If Intel hasn't bumped Iris Pro up higher with the Haswell Refresh, the 850M will push further ahead and make the higher-end MBPs more compelling.
It would surprise me if Apple changed to the 850m on the same cpu generation. The 2011 version of that was nearly identical. It was a higher clocked 6750m, and obviously the 6490m went away. The 850M is suggested as being Maxwell in the article. I don't think Apple would make that big of a bump without a change in cpu generation. It goes against their past patterns. You may be waiting until fall or next year to see Maxwell.
So wait... I thought the 800M series was Maxwell, no? Anyway it looks like as you go up, the performance percentage decreases from last year though having said that, it is a good thing for the lower models.
It's never defined by series. Kepler initially shipped alongside some rebranded Fermi cards.
I'd say Haswell Refresh with Iris Pro still at the entry level and 850M in the higher models. Iris Pro may or may not be improved. This would be in the April-June timeframe.
I'd say Haswell Refresh with Iris Pro still at the entry level and 850M in the higher models. Iris Pro may or may not be improved. This would be in the April-June timeframe.
You've been right on the last few. We'll see who is right this time.
That may be true, that is past history has shown us modest GPU interest by Apple. But what if the haswell refresh is as lame as some have indicated, Apple would need something to stimulate and draw interests for the back to school sales push that happens over the summer. A significantly faster GPU would be something to crow about.
In 2011 they bumped it to a higher clocked version of the same thing, but the bump from intel wasn't out until the back to school season was already over. I'm skeptical regarding what portion of back to school shoppers opts for the $2500 model. Kids often grossly over-estimate what they'll need for a college computer. I typically tell them that if their program requires anything heavy, it will be in the upper division, at which point computer lab workstations, which they pay a fee to use anyway, will be faster than any notebook they purchased 2 year prior. They have been fairly consistent about keeping significant changes aligned with cpu changes. This is probably to align them with changes in the overall logic board assembly.
I'm not sure what to say there. Their naming conventions aren't really regulated. it's just fuzzy branding, although I find it irritating. If it was something like a food product, they would be under some sort of investigation.
The Mini's still untouched and the iMac still lacks Thunderbolt 2, but today we got....the iPad 4. Again.
It's always been hard to tell what's going on inside Apple. But the company has become much harder to figure out since the Jobs era.
We had silence for more than half of 2013, and then a whole bunch of product updates late in the year.
Perhaps Jobs' fiery temper really did bring stuff out faster than otherwise.
We know 4K is being rolled out in the OS, so it's likely that Apple's waiting on 4K to upgrade the iMacs with TB2.
Could that be the holdup with the Mini as well?
Does the Mini's target market care about 4K?
As for the iMacs, Mini and TB2; I suspect that the TB2 hardware is one of the things that delayed the Mac Pro for so long. You would think that by this time though production would be ramped up. Given that the iMac and Mini could relaunch anytime. Honestly I don't see a huge change here. Just look at the history of the Mini and iMacs. The wait for the new Mini has been long but it isn't the longest one on record. That is unadulterated BS. Jobs was very clear about how long it took them to get the iPhone out the door. More so he publicly stated that he was very pleased with products that have not launched. Apparently he was trying to address dissatisfaction within the company over the retargeting the group that developed iOS towards the iPhone instead of a tablet. It literally took them years after the iPhone launch to put the iPad on the market. If you look at the overall time from before the iPhone switch until the iPad launch it was over a half a decade.
Im not sure where all this crap about Apple needing to crap out innovative products every year like clock work comes from. it is worthless nonsense as it was never done when Steve was running things. However with Steve gone Apple is expected to accomplish things it never accomplished under Steve's leadership. Frankly it is even more astonishing to hear this malarky when Apple has been delivering solid products and updates ever since Steve's death. The primary reason to support TB2 on the iMac or even the Mini for that matter, is to provide fast access to storage devices. Probably not. Then again you have to assume that the target market is representative via one prototype. in a nut shell 4K on the Mini isn't a big deal for me.
Im not sure where all this crap about Apple needing to crap out innovative products every year like clock work comes from. it is worthless nonsense as it was never done when Steve was running things. However with Steve gone Apple is expected to accomplish things it never accomplished under Steve's leadership. Frankly it is even more astonishing to hear this malarky when Apple has been delivering solid products and updates ever since Steve's death.
Personally, I've always thought the iWatch and iTV leaks were simply Columbus-level distractions from whatever else Apple is planning to debut.
I agree that it takes several years between "home-run" products and expectations for the Next Big Thing are a little out of hand.
That said, I'm only asking about Mac updates. The Mini doesn't seem to be a big deal to update, and Apple certainly isn't going to debut new tech on the Mac model they love to hate. So where's my new Mini already?
Also, I had thought with Cook supposedly being the channel genius, the iMac would be far ahead of the curve.
Instead, we've got Dell debuting 4K screens first.
Sure, when they come Apple's will probably be more refined and better supported, but I'm still stunned that they introduced the Pro without a 4K screen to go with it. Like I said, the moves are just a bit hard to figure out.
The primary reason to support TB2 on the iMac or even the Mini for that matter, is to provide fast access to storage devices.
I don't dispute that. I'm just saying I expect both upgrades (4K and TB2) to happen on the iMac at the same time.
Also, I had thought with Cook supposedly being the channel genius, the iMac would be far ahead of the curve.
Instead, we've got Dell debuting 4K screens first.
Sure, when they come Apple's will probably be more refined and better supported, but I'm still stunned that they introduced the Pro without a 4K screen to go with it. Like I said, the moves are just a bit hard to figure out.
When I look at Apple's displays I see the captive displays built into the imac and notebooks along with the thunderbolt display, which is really designed as a display + dock. Its design may change with the mac pro also taking on thunderbolt, but the purpose of the prior one was pretty clear. They maintained the prior Cinema display for some time to ensure some compliant option for the older mac pro. When it comes to 4K, Dell's 24" IPS display started around $1400. It dropped to $1200. They have one under $1000 that uses a TN panel. In Apple's case they have already inched up the starting prices on imacs without even transitioning to ssds as standard features. I don't see 4K coming until they can absorb the cost within their desired margins at existing price points. Beyond that I don't know whether they're set on maintaining the existing sizes. They could go to 23" and 28". I don't expect them to go down on screen real estate due to the size of some components like the top gpus used in the 27" model. It isn't likely to go to integrated graphics over the next few cycles given the relative performance gap between a 780M and iris pro regardless of how you spin it. Even in the case of the 650M, it only looks comparable if benchmarks are cherry picked. It was considered good enough to sell at $2000.
I'm not convinced it is that hard to figure out. It is pretty obvious that the Mac operating system is not ready for 4K. At best they are delivering hardware and software suitable for early adopters. As for the Mac Pro they had to ship at some point as the market was getting a bit restless.
So in a nut shell the on,y thing I don't understand is the huge delay for the Mini. I have all sorts of explanations that have no basis in reality, I just focus on the big update because it keeps me in a positive frame of mind.
Perhaps Apple is deciding to drop the Mini from it's line.