So, the external drives are for the ones like you who continue to prefer optical disks in the world of internet. Also, the whole removable content carriers (like thumb drives) will be soon out of date when the internet is powerful and accessible enough. That's what I feel.
You're in your twenties, aren't you?
People have been trotting out this trite argument for over a decade now... the internet will soon be faster than light and infinite bandwidth will cost 6 cents a year and WiFi will radiate from manhole covers so there will be no need for internal or external storage. Despite there being no sign of any of that being any closer to reality now than it was 10 years ago, someone will share that enlightened vision of the future every time anyone bitches about short, impractical or overpriced media management offerings.
WHEN the internet actually IS "powerful and accessible" enough to eliminate the need for local storage, give me a call. In the meantime, I will continue to be annoyed about Apple charging me $200 for the insides of a 32 GB thumb drive and media conglomerates deliberately making it as inconvenient as possible for me to actually use the product I pay them for.
Blu-ray won’t see the end of the decade. That’s not conditional, by the way; I’m including the new 200GB discs in that, as well.
I'll bet you a shiny new Early 2020 AppleThing OohAh* you're wrong. You're right, physical discs will go, and Cloud delivery will become the norm, but just like Apple you're ignoring human inertia. Look how long it took to kill off CDs, and that was with songs at a buck a piece. With "virtual" movies going for $25 a pop and, Apple TV notwithstanding, still being primarily computer-centric, it's going to take a while for the average consumer to wrap her/his head around the value proposition of something with no tangible presence.
* I have no idea what form the personal computing device will have taken by 2020, so let's just agree that the payout is whatever is generally considered kewl when the time comes. Which might be tough... if that time was today, would the choice be an Air, rMBP or iPad?
It's amazing how low your technical comprehension is. The same model number on a component does not mean that the components are identical. Even if they were identical in their functional capacities there are still an innumerable number of factors to consider, including the calibration of the display. Why don't you actually read a fuçking review instead of posting stupid links.
Have you read up on the Monoprice monitor(s)? I suspect not, or you wouldn't have written what you did. That might put you in a position of being more guilty than the one you accuse...
It's a well-built, nicely adjusted piece of kit. It allows the buyer the choice of going short coin with limited options or paying more for luxury and convenience. The reviews are overwhelmingly positive, both from tech geek press types and actual users.
Like everything with the bitten fruit logo on it, the Apple monitor comes in a bit pricey, but people will want it anyway because it HAS the bitten fruit logo on it and it looks nice next to the credenza.
I been saying this since the retina MBP came out. The pricing of the system is WAY too high. Combine that with the fact that the system is completely unserviceable for a user (i.e., upgrade memory or ssd) and the fact that the warranty is only 1YR without Applecare (3YR with Applecare) and you have an unaffordable product for many consumers. There is not a large customer base for $3K laptops that are out of warranty in 1-3 years and the product is unrepairable except through Apple pricing (outrageous).
Once you upgrade the i7 processor from 2.7 to 2.8 for the top model the price does jump to 3,050.00 or even when you change the 256GB drive to 512GB. I really think the base model at 2100.00 is more then adequate though, for myself anyway, I would probably upgrade the memory to 16GB but that's it, the rest is great.
As far as the warranty is concerned there are retailers that offer a 5 year extended warranty. I'm not sure where you live so I'll assume the US. After a little research I found that Fry's Electronics has an extended warranty plan. I don't know anything about this store but their site is fairly large and looks professional.
Mac shipments in the UK certainly aren't helped by Apple continuously jumping up their prices here whilst keeping them stable in the US.
The exchange rate is essentially the same now as when the iMacs were released last year yet we are charged another £100 ($160).
Spot on.
We lose the DVD (which Apple charged me £60 external!) and Apple ups the entry price by £100...then another £50! That's £210 to get the base iMac to little over a year ago!
£210. From a previous £999. Then a £1095 and then a £1150? With Integrated crappics to add insult to injury?
Known in the UK as, 'Taking the p*ss.'
And if that wasn't bad. After the crazy 2008 crash...Apple dropped the £695 integrated crappics iMac....and bumped up the entry price to £999.
'You're taking the p*ss...you're taking the p*ss...repeat.'
I may like Apple kit. ...and according to Steve Jobs, 'Money isn't everything.'
No kidding. Easy to say when you're millions and corporations are ruling the world.
The things they price the best are the entry iPad at £399. It's the best value they do. It wasn't the expected £1000 price tag.
So, we're in a triple dip recession with worse to come (believe what you like...but you can only keep printing money out of fresh air for so long...) and Apple hike their prices and wonder why Mac sales begin to suffer.
I think we've just reached the glass ceiling on Apple's desktop/laptop growth.
Without winding back some of the price hikes to boost sales I can Mac sales slipping or losing traction.
Yeah, yeah. They haven't updated the Pro in years, the iMac had a late update (again, no design to blame this time...), no Macbook Pro or Mini...there's mitigating circumstances along with the ungoing cannibilisation from the iOS devices.
However, you reap what you sow when you're greedy.
Just look at iSocks. Apple could but an Apple logo on 'Jam' or peanut butter and still charge £10-20 for it.
Haven't read all the posts so this may have been discussed:
I think there are 2 sleeper Macs:
1) The New Mac Pro -- likely very expensive, but fills a high-end need where price is secondary. I think that it will be supply constrained for ay least 6 months along with 4K displays.
2) The new Mac Mini (assuming bumped specs at same price) -- especially the server version.
Haven't read all the posts so this may have been discussed:
I think there are 2 sleeper Macs:
1) The New Mac Pro -- likely very expensive, but fills a high-end need where price is secondary. I think that it will be supply constrained for ay least 6 months along with 4K displays.
2) The new Mac Mini (assuming bumped specs at same price) -- especially the server version.
Well, if they want to sell even less Mac Pros than they did before...
Apple could offer a fairer deal to consumers than they do. In this economy it remains to be seen how long Macs can tread water at their current prices.
We used to have an entry iMac for far, far, far less than £1000.
We had one as cheap as £545 inc vat once upon a time (certainly £595...or less for an entry model. Was that junk?)
We lose the DVD (which Apple charged me £60 external!) and Apple ups the entry price by £100...then another £50! That's £210 to get the base iMac to little over a year ago!
£210. From a previous £999. Then a £1095 and then a £1150? With Integrated crappics to add insult to injury?
Known in the UK as, 'Taking the p*ss.'
And if that wasn't bad. After the crazy 2008 crash...Apple dropped the £695 integrated crappics iMac....and bumped up the entry price to £999.
'You're taking the p*ss...you're taking the p*ss...repeat.'
I may like Apple kit. ...and according to Steve Jobs, 'Money isn't everything.'
No kidding. Easy to say when you're millions and corporations are ruling the world.
The things they price the best are the entry iPad at £399. It's the best value they do. It wasn't the expected £1000 price tag.
This is why iMac went from £782 ( March 2009 ) to £949 ( April 2009 ). Ok, Apple was a bit late but there ain't no such thing as a free lunch with Apple.
I like Tim Cook. The Apple legacy is in safe hands as much as it could be.
However, he's capitulated to shareholder demands in a way Steve Jobs never did.
Nobody expects Apple to sell junk.
But Apple can't sell a laptop for £695?
They can't sell an integrated crappics desktop with a monitor, k/b and mouse for £595?
B*ll*cks.
Lemon Bon Bon.
How has Cook now down to shareholder pressure? Many clueless shareholders/analysts want market share in spite of margins. Apple has refused to make cheap sh1t. Sure they can release cheap Macs but it'll be plastic, use cheap components, weak-ass processor and be crap. No thanks.
1) The New Mac Pro -- likely very expensive, but fills a high-end need where price is secondary. I think that it will be supply constrained for ay least 6 months along with 4K displays.
Low volume machines hardly ever have supply problems. You're talking about 250,000 units per quarter tops, that's under 3,000 units per day. The design of the machine is so simplified now:
- base, power supply, single heatsink, attach the 3 required boards to the heatsink, fan on top, pop in the SSD, slide on the lid, test it works before shipping (hopefully)
Assembling one by hand surely wouldn't take more than an hour, so 1 assembly worker could build 8 a day. They can employ 500 workers in one factory and they can meet even their peak worldwide orders no problem. There may be a delay of a few days or so at the start while they build up inventory but never 6 months. Even the iMac that sells 5x that many wasn't delayed by 6 months and this time, they've announced the machine months in advance so they can build up a supply at launch.
but all the manufacturers are shipping the Ultrabooks with the low power CPUs. Intel might have deliberately delayed the standard CPUs to push Ultrabooks, possibly to help drive up average selling prices - notice the Air came out straight away. This unfortunately means that Apple has to wait for CPUs for the 13" rMBP and Mini as they use the higher power dual-core CPUs and while the quad-i7s might be available for the 15", it's hard to ship those without updating the 13" ones at the same time. Switching to the ULT chips would raise the prices.
Thunderbolt 2 is another thing that could cause a delay but Apple skipped it in the iMac so that already weakens potential support, same with the Air. That's probably 50% of their lineup. If they skip it in the MBP, that's a slight disincentive for peripheral manufacturers but not entirely. A lot of peripherals don't need the extra bandwidth anyway. Given that the remaining products to be updated use external displays, I'm thinking there's a 4K display coming. It actually makes a lot of sense that they'd release it after the iMac because that would have created supply constraints having a 4K iMac. If they'd brought out a 4K Thunderbolt display and not a 4K iMac, it wouldn't make the iMac look very good. The iMac is old news now so it doesn't matter.
Tim said to expect product rollouts into 2014 but it doesn't make sense for them to delay the Macs further and they had a whole raft of updates last October. This next event might see new iPads, new minis, new Mac Pro, cheaper Retina Macbook Pros, 4K Thunderbolt displays, hardware controllers for the iPads. Plenty to talk about.
Apple has refused to make cheap sh1t. Sure they can release cheap Macs but it'll be plastic, use cheap components, weak-ass processor and be crap. No thanks.
I don't think you need to go off the deep end on LBB's remarks regarding Macs. I've said it before and I'll say it again...the majority of people don't care about quality of their PCs as much as they do with mobile devices (tablets and laptops included). I'm not saying Apple should make cheap sh!t crap Macs...but I am saying that Apple could lower build costs in order to provide the good in the good/better/best line of all-in-ones. This has nothing to do with catering to shareholders, this has to do with providing a quality product in a classy way. Most would agree that an all-in-one for $800 (as one example) is not thought of as cheap sh!t in and of itself....it depends on what the product looks like and what it can do.
1) The New Mac Pro -- likely very expensive, but fills a high-end need where price is secondary. I think that it will be supply constrained for ay least 6 months along with 4K displays.
Low volume machines hardly ever have supply problems. You're talking about 250,000 units per quarter tops, that's under 3,000 units per day. The design of the machine is so simplified now:
- base, power supply, single heatsink, attach the 3 required boards to the heatsink, fan on top, pop in the SSD, slide on the lid, test it works before shipping (hopefully)
Assembling one by hand surely wouldn't take more than an hour, so 1 assembly worker could build 8 a day. They can employ 500 workers in one factory and they can meet even their peak worldwide orders no problem. There may be a delay of a few days or so at the start while they build up inventory but never 6 months. Even the iMac that sells 5x that many wasn't delayed by 6 months and this time, they've announced the machine months in advance so they can build up a supply at launch.
My theory is that the new Mac Pro will not be a low volume machine. AFAICT it will be the most powerful off-the-shelf solution available to: researchers, 3D Modelers, scientists, creatives, video editors, sound editors, medical/imaging, gamers, etc. It is the only high-end machine that can run [supported] Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X -- singly, or in any combination.
For example, the movie industry is moving towards all-digital, end-to-end 4K creation, distribution and presentation. TV, the same. All this requires much more compute, graphics, storage capacity and I/O capability.
Michael Cioni, digital cinema pioneer, in a 2012 preso "Prepping For A 4K World" -- discussed the processing and "data" requirements of 5K & 4K Video processing on the movie "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo". At about 7:58 in Michael discusses the data processing and storage fanout of end-to-end 4K video:
Significant, is that each frame is 45 MBytes, and at 25 frames per second thats 1.1 GBytes per second.12 TBytes of source video is processed to produce an hour video of 4T Bytes of output. Special effects often are done at 60 or 120 fps -- greatly increasing processing/storage requirements.
Circa 2000, when Final Cut 1 came on the scene, a typical video editing seat cost $125,000-$250,000 for hardware and software.
Today you can greatly exceed that capability for around $12,000.
For example I have:
$500 Final Cut Pro X, Motion, Compressor
$500 Plugins and training
$500 Cables and Misc.
$1,500 Silhouette SFX Roto/Paint
$3,700 Loaded 2011 iMac 27" (I use an old 23" Cinema display as a second monitor)
$4,800 2 Promise Pegasus 12 (10 TB) Thunderbolt Raid
$11,500 Total
So, for 1/10 of the cost of a video editing seat in 2000, I have much, much more capability.
Now here's an unexpected incident: My granddaughter was fooling around with my iPhone 5S - taking SloMo videos: 1280x720 at 120 fps. I imported one of these videos into FCPX -- it was 14 seconds long (60 fps) and 29 seconds long when conformed to 120 fps. What surprised me was that my very capable iMac really struggled to import, optimize and render this relatively minor clip. It wasn't red-lined, but there was obviously some problem processing 720P at 120 fps???
Back on point. I have put off replacing the 2011 iMac 27" with a newer model pending the announcement and pricing of the new Mac Pro.
To my mind, $5,000 - $6,000 for a Mac Pro would greatly increase my processing capability at an acceptable cost -- and provide better future-proofing (upgrade capability) to boot.
I am not a 'pro" editor (just an old guy with 3 teenage grandkids), but I don't think that I am alone… The price is quite affordable -- especially when you consider that I paid $2,700 (not including disks monitor, etc.) for my 48 KB (yes KiloByte) RAM in 1978. $2,700 in 1978 dollars is about $12,000 in 2013 dollars.
One final point: Apple, brilliantly (IMO), has reduced the entry cost for video, effects and sound editing software to the point where anyone with a decent camera/sound equipment and access to a Mac can do these types editing. And once you get the creative juices running -- what's a few thousand dollars to realize your creative potential -- software, hardware, camera/sound equipment alike?
Whew!
Another final point: I used the cinema industry as an example, but there are a lot of other industries that use high-end personal computers and workstations. I think that this market segment is open to disruption… Who better than Apple with a $5,000-$10,000 new Mac Pro (with all the latest tech) to provide this high-end disruption?
The full video is below -- an excellent and fun watch!
I don't think you need to go off the deep end on LBB's remarks regarding Macs. I've said it before and I'll say it again...the majority of people don't care about quality of their PCs as much as they do with mobile devices (tablets and laptops included). I'm not saying Apple should make cheap sh!t crap Macs...but I am saying that Apple could lower build costs in order to provide the good in the good/better/best line of all-in-ones. This has nothing to do with catering to shareholders, this has to do with providing a quality product in a classy way. Most would agree that an all-in-one for $800 (as one example) is not thought of as cheap sh!t in and of itself....it depends on what the product looks like and what it can do.
The majority of people may not care, but Apple does. Why should Apple cater to them? They make 45% of the PC profits and own 90% of the $1000+ market.
Comments
So, the external drives are for the ones like you who continue to prefer optical disks in the world of internet. Also, the whole removable content carriers (like thumb drives) will be soon out of date when the internet is powerful and accessible enough. That's what I feel.
You're in your twenties, aren't you?
People have been trotting out this trite argument for over a decade now... the internet will soon be faster than light and infinite bandwidth will cost 6 cents a year and WiFi will radiate from manhole covers so there will be no need for internal or external storage. Despite there being no sign of any of that being any closer to reality now than it was 10 years ago, someone will share that enlightened vision of the future every time anyone bitches about short, impractical or overpriced media management offerings.
WHEN the internet actually IS "powerful and accessible" enough to eliminate the need for local storage, give me a call. In the meantime, I will continue to be annoyed about Apple charging me $200 for the insides of a 32 GB thumb drive and media conglomerates deliberately making it as inconvenient as possible for me to actually use the product I pay them for.
Blu-ray won’t see the end of the decade. That’s not conditional, by the way; I’m including the new 200GB discs in that, as well.
I'll bet you a shiny new Early 2020 AppleThing OohAh* you're wrong. You're right, physical discs will go, and Cloud delivery will become the norm, but just like Apple you're ignoring human inertia. Look how long it took to kill off CDs, and that was with songs at a buck a piece. With "virtual" movies going for $25 a pop and, Apple TV notwithstanding, still being primarily computer-centric, it's going to take a while for the average consumer to wrap her/his head around the value proposition of something with no tangible presence.
* I have no idea what form the personal computing device will have taken by 2020, so let's just agree that the payout is whatever is generally considered kewl when the time comes. Which might be tough... if that time was today, would the choice be an Air, rMBP or iPad?
It's amazing how low your technical comprehension is. The same model number on a component does not mean that the components are identical. Even if they were identical in their functional capacities there are still an innumerable number of factors to consider, including the calibration of the display. Why don't you actually read a fuçking review instead of posting stupid links.
Have you read up on the Monoprice monitor(s)? I suspect not, or you wouldn't have written what you did. That might put you in a position of being more guilty than the one you accuse...
It's a well-built, nicely adjusted piece of kit. It allows the buyer the choice of going short coin with limited options or paying more for luxury and convenience. The reviews are overwhelmingly positive, both from tech geek press types and actual users.
Like everything with the bitten fruit logo on it, the Apple monitor comes in a bit pricey, but people will want it anyway because it HAS the bitten fruit logo on it and it looks nice next to the credenza.
I been saying this since the retina MBP came out. The pricing of the system is WAY too high. Combine that with the fact that the system is completely unserviceable for a user (i.e., upgrade memory or ssd) and the fact that the warranty is only 1YR without Applecare (3YR with Applecare) and you have an unaffordable product for many consumers. There is not a large customer base for $3K laptops that are out of warranty in 1-3 years and the product is unrepairable except through Apple pricing (outrageous).
1->They are repairable
2->It's 3k???
omgwat
1->They are repairable
2->It's 3k???
omgwat
Once you upgrade the i7 processor from 2.7 to 2.8 for the top model the price does jump to 3,050.00 or even when you change the 256GB drive to 512GB. I really think the base model at 2100.00 is more then adequate though, for myself anyway, I would probably upgrade the memory to 16GB but that's it, the rest is great.
As far as the warranty is concerned there are retailers that offer a 5 year extended warranty. I'm not sure where you live so I'll assume the US. After a little research I found that Fry's Electronics has an extended warranty plan. I don't know anything about this store but their site is fairly large and looks professional.
And OS X’s marketshare against Windows is growing, by the way.
Very True.
2011 - iOS 1% / OSX 6.8%
2013 - iOS 4.15% / OSX 7%
Mac shipments in the UK certainly aren't helped by Apple continuously jumping up their prices here whilst keeping them stable in the US.
The exchange rate is essentially the same now as when the iMacs were released last year yet we are charged another £100 ($160).
Spot on.
We lose the DVD (which Apple charged me £60 external!) and Apple ups the entry price by £100...then another £50! That's £210 to get the base iMac to little over a year ago!
£210. From a previous £999. Then a £1095 and then a £1150? With Integrated crappics to add insult to injury?
Known in the UK as, 'Taking the p*ss.'
And if that wasn't bad. After the crazy 2008 crash...Apple dropped the £695 integrated crappics iMac....and bumped up the entry price to £999.
'You're taking the p*ss...you're taking the p*ss...repeat.'
I may like Apple kit. ...and according to Steve Jobs, 'Money isn't everything.'
No kidding. Easy to say when you're millions and corporations are ruling the world.
The things they price the best are the entry iPad at £399. It's the best value they do. It wasn't the expected £1000 price tag.
I await the price of the Mac Pros with interest.
Lemon Bon Bon.
So, we're in a triple dip recession with worse to come (believe what you like...but you can only keep printing money out of fresh air for so long...) and Apple hike their prices and wonder why Mac sales begin to suffer.
I think we've just reached the glass ceiling on Apple's desktop/laptop growth.
Without winding back some of the price hikes to boost sales I can Mac sales slipping or losing traction.
Yeah, yeah. They haven't updated the Pro in years, the iMac had a late update (again, no design to blame this time...), no Macbook Pro or Mini...there's mitigating circumstances along with the ungoing cannibilisation from the iOS devices.
However, you reap what you sow when you're greedy.
Just look at iSocks. Apple could but an Apple logo on 'Jam' or peanut butter and still charge £10-20 for it.
Lemon Bon Bon.
I think there are 2 sleeper Macs:
1) The New Mac Pro -- likely very expensive, but fills a high-end need where price is secondary. I think that it will be supply constrained for ay least 6 months along with 4K displays.
2) The new Mac Mini (assuming bumped specs at same price) -- especially the server version.
They even hiked the price of the iPhone 5S.
So the '5' wasn't really £100 less at all. With the plastic casing they're using, they've padded margins on both the 's' and 'c' models.
Transparent?
Yes.
Greedy B*st*rdness?
Yes.
Lemon Bon Bon.
I like Tim Cook. The Apple legacy is in safe hands as much as it could be.
However, he's capitulated to shareholder demands in a way Steve Jobs never did.
Nobody expects Apple to sell junk.
But Apple can't sell a laptop for £695?
They can't sell an integrated crappics desktop with a monitor, k/b and mouse for £595?
B*ll*cks.
Lemon Bon Bon.
Haven't read all the posts so this may have been discussed:
I think there are 2 sleeper Macs:
1) The New Mac Pro -- likely very expensive, but fills a high-end need where price is secondary. I think that it will be supply constrained for ay least 6 months along with 4K displays.
2) The new Mac Mini (assuming bumped specs at same price) -- especially the server version.
Well, if they want to sell even less Mac Pros than they did before...
Lemon Bon Bon.
Apple could offer a fairer deal to consumers than they do. In this economy it remains to be seen how long Macs can tread water at their current prices.
We used to have an entry iMac for far, far, far less than £1000.
We had one as cheap as £545 inc vat once upon a time (certainly £595...or less for an entry model. Was that junk?)
Lemon Bon Bon.
Spot on.
We lose the DVD (which Apple charged me £60 external!) and Apple ups the entry price by £100...then another £50! That's £210 to get the base iMac to little over a year ago!
£210. From a previous £999. Then a £1095 and then a £1150? With Integrated crappics to add insult to injury?
Known in the UK as, 'Taking the p*ss.'
And if that wasn't bad. After the crazy 2008 crash...Apple dropped the £695 integrated crappics iMac....and bumped up the entry price to £999.
'You're taking the p*ss...you're taking the p*ss...repeat.'
I may like Apple kit. ...and according to Steve Jobs, 'Money isn't everything.'
No kidding. Easy to say when you're millions and corporations are ruling the world.
The things they price the best are the entry iPad at £399. It's the best value they do. It wasn't the expected £1000 price tag.
I await the price of the Mac Pros with interest.
Lemon Bon Bon.
£ vs $,
http://finance.yahoo.com/echarts?s=GBPUSD%3DX+Interactive#symbol=;range=20080325,20130705;compare=;indicator=volume;charttype=area;crosshair=on;ohlcvalues=0;logscale=off;source=undefined;
This is why iMac went from £782 ( March 2009 ) to £949 ( April 2009 ). Ok, Apple was a bit late but there ain't no such thing as a free lunch with Apple.
How has Cook now down to shareholder pressure? Many clueless shareholders/analysts want market share in spite of margins. Apple has refused to make cheap sh1t. Sure they can release cheap Macs but it'll be plastic, use cheap components, weak-ass processor and be crap. No thanks.
Low volume machines hardly ever have supply problems. You're talking about 250,000 units per quarter tops, that's under 3,000 units per day. The design of the machine is so simplified now:
- base, power supply, single heatsink, attach the 3 required boards to the heatsink, fan on top, pop in the SSD, slide on the lid, test it works before shipping (hopefully)
Assembling one by hand surely wouldn't take more than an hour, so 1 assembly worker could build 8 a day. They can employ 500 workers in one factory and they can meet even their peak worldwide orders no problem. There may be a delay of a few days or so at the start while they build up inventory but never 6 months. Even the iMac that sells 5x that many wasn't delayed by 6 months and this time, they've announced the machine months in advance so they can build up a supply at launch.
The Mini is likely waiting on the dual-core CPUs. They seem to have benchmarks out:
http://www.notebookcheck.net/Intel-Core-i5-4300M-Notebook-Processor.93556.0.html
but all the manufacturers are shipping the Ultrabooks with the low power CPUs. Intel might have deliberately delayed the standard CPUs to push Ultrabooks, possibly to help drive up average selling prices - notice the Air came out straight away. This unfortunately means that Apple has to wait for CPUs for the 13" rMBP and Mini as they use the higher power dual-core CPUs and while the quad-i7s might be available for the 15", it's hard to ship those without updating the 13" ones at the same time. Switching to the ULT chips would raise the prices.
Thunderbolt 2 is another thing that could cause a delay but Apple skipped it in the iMac so that already weakens potential support, same with the Air. That's probably 50% of their lineup. If they skip it in the MBP, that's a slight disincentive for peripheral manufacturers but not entirely. A lot of peripherals don't need the extra bandwidth anyway. Given that the remaining products to be updated use external displays, I'm thinking there's a 4K display coming. It actually makes a lot of sense that they'd release it after the iMac because that would have created supply constraints having a 4K iMac. If they'd brought out a 4K Thunderbolt display and not a 4K iMac, it wouldn't make the iMac look very good. The iMac is old news now so it doesn't matter.
Tim said to expect product rollouts into 2014 but it doesn't make sense for them to delay the Macs further and they had a whole raft of updates last October. This next event might see new iPads, new minis, new Mac Pro, cheaper Retina Macbook Pros, 4K Thunderbolt displays, hardware controllers for the iPads. Plenty to talk about.
Don't forget that $ doesn't include tax, £ does.
Apple has refused to make cheap sh1t. Sure they can release cheap Macs but it'll be plastic, use cheap components, weak-ass processor and be crap. No thanks.
I don't think you need to go off the deep end on LBB's remarks regarding Macs. I've said it before and I'll say it again...the majority of people don't care about quality of their PCs as much as they do with mobile devices (tablets and laptops included). I'm not saying Apple should make cheap sh!t crap Macs...but I am saying that Apple could lower build costs in order to provide the good in the good/better/best line of all-in-ones. This has nothing to do with catering to shareholders, this has to do with providing a quality product in a classy way. Most would agree that an all-in-one for $800 (as one example) is not thought of as cheap sh!t in and of itself....it depends on what the product looks like and what it can do.
My theory is that the new Mac Pro will not be a low volume machine. AFAICT it will be the most powerful off-the-shelf solution available to: researchers, 3D Modelers, scientists, creatives, video editors, sound editors, medical/imaging, gamers, etc. It is the only high-end machine that can run [supported] Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac OS X -- singly, or in any combination.
For example, the movie industry is moving towards all-digital, end-to-end 4K creation, distribution and presentation. TV, the same. All this requires much more compute, graphics, storage capacity and I/O capability.
Michael Cioni, digital cinema pioneer, in a 2012 preso "Prepping For A 4K World" -- discussed the processing and "data" requirements of 5K & 4K Video processing on the movie "The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo". At about 7:58 in Michael discusses the data processing and storage fanout of end-to-end 4K video:
Significant, is that each frame is 45 MBytes, and at 25 frames per second thats 1.1 GBytes per second. 12 TBytes of source video is processed to produce an hour video of 4T Bytes of output. Special effects often are done at 60 or 120 fps -- greatly increasing processing/storage requirements.
Circa 2000, when Final Cut 1 came on the scene, a typical video editing seat cost $125,000-$250,000 for hardware and software.
Today you can greatly exceed that capability for around $12,000.
For example I have:
$500 Final Cut Pro X, Motion, Compressor
$500 Plugins and training
$500 Cables and Misc.
$1,500 Silhouette SFX Roto/Paint
$3,700 Loaded 2011 iMac 27" (I use an old 23" Cinema display as a second monitor)
$4,800 2 Promise Pegasus 12 (10 TB) Thunderbolt Raid
$11,500 Total
So, for 1/10 of the cost of a video editing seat in 2000, I have much, much more capability.
Now here's an unexpected incident: My granddaughter was fooling around with my iPhone 5S - taking SloMo videos: 1280x720 at 120 fps. I imported one of these videos into FCPX -- it was 14 seconds long (60 fps) and 29 seconds long when conformed to 120 fps. What surprised me was that my very capable iMac really struggled to import, optimize and render this relatively minor clip. It wasn't red-lined, but there was obviously some problem processing 720P at 120 fps???
Back on point. I have put off replacing the 2011 iMac 27" with a newer model pending the announcement and pricing of the new Mac Pro.
To my mind, $5,000 - $6,000 for a Mac Pro would greatly increase my processing capability at an acceptable cost -- and provide better future-proofing (upgrade capability) to boot.
I am not a 'pro" editor (just an old guy with 3 teenage grandkids), but I don't think that I am alone… The price is quite affordable -- especially when you consider that I paid $2,700 (not including disks monitor, etc.) for my 48 KB (yes KiloByte) RAM in 1978. $2,700 in 1978 dollars is about $12,000 in 2013 dollars.
One final point: Apple, brilliantly (IMO), has reduced the entry cost for video, effects and sound editing software to the point where anyone with a decent camera/sound equipment and access to a Mac can do these types editing. And once you get the creative juices running -- what's a few thousand dollars to realize your creative potential -- software, hardware, camera/sound equipment alike?
Whew!
Another final point: I used the cinema industry as an example, but there are a lot of other industries that use high-end personal computers and workstations. I think that this market segment is open to disruption… Who better than Apple with a $5,000-$10,000 new Mac Pro (with all the latest tech) to provide this high-end disruption?
The full video is below -- an excellent and fun watch!
[VIDEO]
The majority of people may not care, but Apple does. Why should Apple cater to them? They make 45% of the PC profits and own 90% of the $1000+ market.