retina display? Hm. Golf clap. Great for people with 20/20. How about reasonable entry level model prices and add a 14" or 15" MacBook Air option? And exploring creation of a Surface-Pro-like MBA variant?
retina display? Hm. Golf clap. Great for people with 20/20.
You know being an old guy I use to think that before I got my iPad 3. Let me tell you from experience retina screens are easier on the eyes even if at times you have to wear glasses. I think it is the result of your eyes not trying to focus in on something that is always blurry.
How about reasonable entry level model prices and add a 14" or 15" MacBook Air option? And exploring creation of a Surface-Pro-like MBA variant?
The Mac Book Air could be seen as reasonably priced. In fact I have a hard time even finding anything that is actually cheaper and also in the same performance class.
retina display? Hm. Golf clap. Great for people with 20/20. How about reasonable entry level model prices and add a 14" or 15" MacBook Air option? And exploring creation of a Surface-Pro-like MBA variant?
15" is typically the most popular size with other brands, so I'm sure people would purchase one. Apple has been increasingly careful about spacing out their product lines by price range, so I really don't see that as likely.
The Mac Book Air could be seen as reasonably priced. In fact I have a hard time even finding anything that is actually cheaper and also in the same performance class.
It is, very much so but for the same price I think I would still prefer the Surface Pro 3, especially now that I got OSX working on it. It actually makes for a pretty good Mac but I won't be giving up my MacBook Air either anytime soon, nor my Lenovo X230T, another fantastic laptop.
are we likely to see any major upgrades in the macbook pro or the macbook air section next year and if yes then when?
please let me know if you have reliable source even though i know that it's very hard to predict what apple is going to launch next year. mention the source also. i am planning to buy a new system so i want to know if it's worth the wait or should i get one right now.
i do know that the broadwell processors will be incorporated surely next year but what else?
It is, very much so but for the same price I think I would still prefer the Surface Pro 3, especially now that I got OSX working on it. It actually makes for a pretty good Mac but I won't be giving up my MacBook Air either anytime soon, nor my Lenovo X230T, another fantastic laptop.
I just had a bit of a laugh here because in my entry lifetime I've personally owned one (1) laptop. That is it. I have had two IPads so far though. Apple certainly got a few features right in iPad as it is a lot more convienent for travel, web surfing and the like.
So this brings up the question just how many laptops can you realistically keep in play at anyone time? That is how many get used as opposed to sitting on a shelf somewhere.
It is, very much so but for the same price I think I would still prefer the Surface Pro 3, especially now that I got OSX working on it. It actually makes for a pretty good Mac but I won't be giving up my MacBook Air either anytime soon, nor my Lenovo X230T, another fantastic laptop.
I just had a bit of a laugh here because in my entry lifetime I've personally owned one (1) laptop. That is it. I have had two IPads so far though. Apple certainly got a few features right in iPad as it is a lot more convienent for travel, web surfing and the like.
So this brings up the question just how many laptops can you realistically keep in play at anyone time? That is how many get used as opposed to sitting on a shelf somewhere.
Hey, this is Relic you're talking about!
Why use one laptop when two will do the trick just as well? ????
I just had a bit of a laugh here because in my entry lifetime I've personally owned one (1) laptop. That is it. I have had two IPads so far though. Apple certainly got a few features right in iPad as it is a lot more convienent for travel, web surfing and the like.
So this brings up the question just how many laptops can you realistically keep in play at anyone time? That is how many get used as opposed to sitting on a shelf somewhere.
I will always have at least three. one is for testing and mad scientisty stuff, normally I will choose a ThinkPad X series as you can run anything on them, including obscure stuff like Solaris. Then their is my work, programming laptop which has to be bullet proof, traditionally that has been a MacBook Air and then the last for music creation, graphic and video work, though I now have two for all of that, a Surface Pro 3 and a recently acquired Panasonic ToughPad 4K (i7-3687U, Quadro K2000M, 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM), my husbands boss graciously gave this to me as a present, well, it was given to them as a gift from a sheiks son, seriously. My husband works at a private bank in Zurich, how cliche for Switzerland right. There is actually to of these bad boys and were stuck in a closet for a few months. My husband kept dropping hints to the president that his wife would love to at least play with one however he was constantly, but politely shrugged off until the chief came over for cocktails one evening to discuss a deal. While my husband was giving the grand tour of our house and they came across my office, the chief changed his mind about letting me have the Panasonic, he thought I was just another housewife who wanted to use it for shopping. He added that if anyone should have one it defiantly should be me, because of my current health situation and Über geekness, how sweet. Anyway, I thought the Panasonic would only have an i5 and 8GB of RAM as those were the specs I saw on the website but I was pleasantly surprised to find an i7 CPU and 16GB of RAM. The thing is massive and even though it does have a battery for about 5 hours of use I don't think anyone in their right mind would use it as a tablet. It's meant to be used flat on a desk. I'm thinking of getting a custom table top made where the tablet can fit flush into the desk, a nice piece of cherry wood as I like dark woods. My idea is to use it as a mixer and a drawing canvas as with the included digitized pen and resolution, you couldn't ask for a better PhotoShop and SketchBook Pro machine. Actually I have a lot more planned for it, air hockey on it is amazing, well pretty much any touch game is amazing on it.
Where I have cut back on is tablets, hurray for progress, I used to own 6 but now it will just be a Nexus 9 32GB, Nokia 2520 (still my favorite gadget for surfing and writing), 2 iPad Air 2's (I just ordered the second one, WiFi 64GB version, where the other one is an LTE, 128GB, both silver) and my Kindle HDX 64GB (I still very much like this little guy as it's fast (Qualcomm 800, 2GB RAM, 1080P), great battery life and it projects videos to a TV wirelessly better than anything I own, that and I just got a subscription to Kindle unlimited, yes I can use any of my tablets to use this service with but what can I say, I'm a purist). I gave my son the Nvidia Shield, which was always the plan, fantastic little Android tablet by the way and I couldn't recommend it enough, especially when Nvidia Grid is finally up and running, my daughter got the previous iPad Air model and my little Nooky Glow. I sold the Nexus 10 in anticipation for the new Nexus 9. So you see I've become more sensible, nah, who am I kidding, I'm as nutty as they come. I will even probably end up getting another iPad Air 2 as the first 2 will be connected to tablet arms on my desk which will be stationary and then the other will be inserted into that ultra cool keyboard case from ClamCase.
Desktop computer wise is where I haven't gotten completely nuts, not yet anyway. I still have a mutant HP Z800 station which contains a; dual Xeon X5660, 196GB RAM, 1x 240GB Samsung 840 SSD(system), 4 X 600GB SAS 15K RPM Hitachi (HP stamped) Raid 5, HP Quadro 6000, HP Tesla C2050, Intel Xeon Phi 3120A and a ASUS Xonar Essence STX. Everything was either bought on Ebay or from overstock auctions, it took a while to accumulate everything especially when I kept upgrading the components in the process, specifically the memory and the Quadro card, which I started out with a Quadro 4000, got the 6000 for only 180 dollars because it had a cracked, non-functioning fan, 23 dollars later and it worked perfectly, a gamble that paid off. Even though ever component was bought separately, everything except the Xeon Phi and Asus Xonar is an official HP component, even the memory so it is all HP and all beast if I do say myself. What's really nice about this machine is the motherboard, everything is laid out perfectly and it contained 3 PCI-e slots that were just far enough apart to accommodate those very large beefy cards, hey that rymes with just enough room to squeeze in a premium sound card like the Asus Xonar, which is, I believe as well as many others to be the best sound card for the money on the market.
I also have three Unix machines that are fully operational, though the SGI's are more for show at this point, I fire it up every once in a while. A SGI Tezro Desktop, 4x 1GHz R16000s, 8GB RAM, VPro V12, 2 X 73GB IBM HD's, DMediaPro DM3, DM5 and DM10 HD/SD Video I/O and audio boards with HDGVO, SGI Tezro Rackmount, 4x 1GHz R16000s, 16GB RAM, 2 x VPro V12, 2 X 73GB IBM HD's, it's used in conjunction with the desktop for extra power. Sun Ultra 45, 2 X 1.6GHz UltraSPARC IIIi CPU's, 16GB RAM, 4 x 146GB 15K RPM drives, 2 x XVR-2500, 24" SUN Monitor AI24P0. I kind of stole this system, it was my work computer before I had to resign. I never returned it and they never asked for it back. It was a 8,000CHF system new that still costs about 4,000CHF. It's nothing compared to what a good Xeon workstation can do but it's a fantastic Unix machine none the less, probably the best one that you can currently get without having to pay a fortune by going IBM. I'm still a Unix girl and will always have a pure Unix workstation in my life, there is nothing like it that is comparable.
Like I posted before I am serious about getting a Mac Pro and selling the HP, I figure I could get at least 2000 CHF for it, maybe more do to all of those wonderfull extras. I will than just get the Mac Pro base model and purchase the memory and the Xeon 12 core CPU separately as I can save and this is no joke guys, more than 1800 buckaroonies, if I go the Xeon 14 core route it'll be about 1100 dollars but still a huge savings none the less. Apple charges 3500 to bump the 4 core Xeon to the 12 core Xeon, Amazon sells the same 12 core that Apple uses for 2600 and that's retail folks. 300 bucks more, okay, I can let that slide, but 900 and again that's retail, you might as well spit into your hand, rub your backside, bend over and clinche. As an added bonus I know the manager of the computer store where I will be ordering the CPU and memory from so he's only going to charge me 2300 for the CPU and with the memory, same deal, 64GB DDR3 18000 ECC for 620 vs. the 1300 that Apple wanted to charge me, plus I'm getting Kingston RAMs. What I'm still on the ropes about is upgrading to the D700 graphics cards or not, as I feel it might just be a waste of money as OSX still can't combine their performance using CrossFire, a huge disadvantage if you ask me. So I'm thinking of taking the money I saved, 2800 bucks, from not upgrading to the D700's and buying the memory and CPU separately, than putting it towards the purchase of an Nvidia K10 Tesla card 2300 in which I will insert into an external ThunderBolt Case, 600, total: 2900. What are your suggestions and feelings on the matter guys?
So that is my current computer situation, I know it's a little on the extreme side and probably bat shitt crazy that any one person would own so much tech, and I didn't even include things like my Arm development boards, ChromeBox's, ChromeBook's, monitors with embeded ARM chips in them. It makes me happy though and at the end of the day it was all technically free anyway, thank you Apple.
I will always have at least three. one is for testing and mad scientisty stuff, normally I will choose a ThinkPad X series as you can run anything on them, including obscure stuff like Solaris. Then their is my work,
Work hardware doesn't count.
programming laptop which has to be bullet proof, traditionally that has been a MacBook Air and then the last for music creation, graphic and video work, though I now have two for all of that, a Surface Pro 3 and a recently acquired Panasonic ToughPad 4K (i7-3687U, Quadro K2000M, 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM), my husbands boss graciously gave this to me as a present, well, it was given to them as a gift from a sheiks son, seriously. My husband works at a private bank in Zurich, how cliche for Switzerland right.
It isn't like I will ever need a Swiss bank account.
There is actually to of these bad boys and were stuck in a closet for a few months. My husband kept dropping hints to the president that his wife would love to at least play with one however he was constantly, but politely shrugged off until the chief came over for cocktails one evening to discuss a deal. While my husband was giving the grand tour of our house and they came across my office, the chief changed his mind about letting me have the Panasonic, he thought I was just another housewife who wanted to use it for shopping.
Why would he thing that. Besides most house wives are surfing for porn. After all how much can one actually buy on line.
He added that if anyone should have one it defiantly should be me, because of my current health situation and Über geekness, how sweet.
Sweetness around here comes with a handle called Relic.
Anyway, I thought the Panasonic would only have an i5 and 8GB of RAM as those were the specs I saw on the website but I was pleasantly surprised to find an i7 CPU and 16GB of RAM. The thing is massive and even though it does have a battery for about 5 hours of use I don't think anyone in their right mind would use it as a tablet. It's meant to be used flat on a desk. I'm thinking of getting a custom table top made where the tablet can fit flush into the desk, a nice piece of cherry wood as I like dark woods. My idea is to use it as a mixer and a drawing canvas as with the included digitized pen and resolution, you couldn't ask for a better PhotoShop and SketchBook Pro machine. Actually I have a lot more planned for it, air hockey on it is amazing, well pretty much any touch game is amazing on it.
So now we are building custom furniture around the computer hardware.
Where I have cut back on is tablets, hurray for progress, I used to own 6 but now it will just be a Nexus 9 32GB, Nokia 2520 (still my favorite gadget for surfing and writing), 2 iPad Air 2's (I just ordered the second one, WiFi 64GB version, where the other one is an LTE, 128GB, both silver) and my Kindle HDX 64GB (I still very much like this little guy as it's fast (Qualcomm 800, 2GB RAM, 1080P), great battery life and it projects videos to a TV wirelessly better than anything I own, that and I just got a subscription to Kindle unlimited, yes I can use any of my tablets to use this service with but what can I say, I'm a purist). I gave my son the Nvidia Shield, which was always the plan, fantastic little Android tablet by the way and I couldn't recommend it enough, especially when Nvidia Grid is finally up and running, my daughter got the previous iPad Air model and my little Nooky Glow. I sold the Nexus 10 in anticipation for the new Nexus 9. So you see I've become more sensible, nah, who am I kidding, I'm as nutty as they come. I will even probably end up getting another iPad Air 2 as the first 2 will be connected to tablet arms on my desk which will be stationary and then the other will be inserted into that ultra cool keyboard case from ClamCase.
You know a report on those new iPads from a Uber geek would be very welcomed.
Desktop computer wise is where I haven't gotten completely nuts, not yet anyway. I still have a mutant HP Z800 station which contains a; dual Xeon X5660, 196GB RAM, 1x 240GB Samsung 840 SSD(system), 4 X 600GB SAS 15K RPM Hitachi (HP stamped) Raid 5, HP Quadro 6000, HP Tesla C2050, Intel Xeon Phi 3120A and a ASUS Xonar Essence STX. Everything was either bought on Ebay or from overstock auctions, it took a while to accumulate everything especially when I kept upgrading the components in the process, specifically the memory and the Quadro card, which I started out with a Quadro 4000, got the 6000 for only 180 dollars because it had a cracked, non-functioning fan, 23 dollars later and it worked perfectly, a gamble that paid off. Even though ever component was bought separately, everything except the Xeon Phi and Asus Xonar is an official HP component, even the memory so it is all HP and all beast if I do say myself. What's really nice about this machine is the motherboard, everything is laid out perfectly and it contained 3 PCI-e slots that were just far enough apart to accommodate those very large beefy cards, hey that rymes with just enough room to squeeze in a premium sound card like the Asus Xonar, which is, I believe as well as many others to be the best sound card for the money on the market.
I also have three Unix machines that are fully operational, though the SGI's are more for show at this point, I fire it up every once in a while. A SGI Tezro Desktop, 4x 1GHz R16000s, 8GB RAM, VPro V12, 2 X 73GB IBM HD's, DMediaPro DM3, DM5 and DM10 HD/SD Video I/O and audio boards with HDGVO, SGI Tezro Rackmount, 4x 1GHz R16000s, 16GB RAM, 2 x VPro V12, 2 X 73GB IBM HD's, it's used in conjunction with the desktop for extra power. Sun Ultra 45, 2 X 1.6GHz UltraSPARC IIIi CPU's, 16GB RAM, 4 x 146GB 15K RPM drives, 2 x XVR-2500, 24" SUN Monitor AI24P0. I kind of stole this system, it was my work computer before I had to resign. I never returned it and they never asked for it back. It was a 8,000CHF system new that still costs about 4,000CHF. It's nothing compared to what a good Xeon workstation can do but it's a fantastic Unix machine none the less, probably the best one that you can currently get without having to pay a fortune by going IBM. I'm still a Unix girl and will always have a pure Unix workstation in my life, there is nothing like it that is comparable.
So Mac UNIX isn't good enough for you? One of the reasons I switched back tot he Mac in 2008 was the fact that Mac OS was UNIX at its heart. The previous Mac was a Mac Plus. I kept that Mac Plus for a very long time until it became unbearable performance wise. I liked the concept but the operating system suck and of course back then the hardware was nothing to speak of performance wise.
Like I posted before I am serious about getting a Mac Pro and selling the HP, I figure I could get at least 2000 CHF for it, maybe more do to all of those wonderfull extras. I will than just get the Mac Pro base model and purchase the memory and the Xeon 12 core CPU separately as I can save and this is no joke guys, more than a thousand buckaroonies, if I go the Xeon 14 core route it'll be about 1100 dollars but still a huge savings none the less. Do the math yourself, Apple charges 3500 to bump the 4 Core Xeon to the 12 core, Amazon sells the same Xeon 12 core CPU Apple uses for 2600, However, I know the manager of the computer store where I'm going to order this from and he's only going to charge me 2300, memory the same thing 64GB DDR3 18000 ECC, 620 vs. 1300 that Apple want's to charge me and I'm getting Kingston RAMs.
That may be true but the vast majority of people buying a Mac Pro don't care about CPU and RAM upgrades. It is a tool purchased with an expected amount of support and performance.
What I'm still on the ropes about is upgrading to the D700 graphics cards or not, as I feel it might just be a waste of money as OSX still can't combine their performance using CrossFire, a huge disadvantage if you ask me.
I think the intention is to use the other GPU card as a compute accelerator. Remember Apple has never courted the gaming community with its Macs so CrossFire means little to them or most of their customers. Maybe we will see CrossFire support later but I've not been any signs from Apple that they care.
So I'm thinking of taking the money I saved, 2800 bucks, from not upgrading to the D700's and buying the memory and CPU separately and than purchase an Nvidia K10 Tesla card 2300 and than insert it into a external ThunderBolt Case, 600, total: 2900. What are your suggestions and feelings on the matter guys?
What do we think? Pretty simple really, it depends. Cop out I know but it is true. The first thing to realize is that for some uses the TB link will limit your performance. On top of that is you buy the uprated GPU cards you will already have a very good compute card built right into the Mac Pro.
So that is my current computer situation, I know it's a little on the extreme side and also probably bat shitt crazy, but it makes me happy, at the end of the day it was all technically free anyway, thank you Apple.
Hey spread some of that free around.
A comment or two on the Mac Pro. For one I'd seriously wait for the next revision with the hopes that it would ship with a next generation Xeon. A GPU update wouldn't be bad either. What the Mac Pro needs more than anything is a much faster memory subsystem as having all those cores in one chip does result in bottle necks. So The dream Mac would come with new Xeon's, new GPU's and Fast RAM. The really hot emissions producing dream would be Memory Cube memory but I'd settle for high end DDR4 RAM.
Why use one laptop when two will do the trick just as well? ????
Just two, sir you wound me.
Edit: having read your post, I realise my error.
How many do you have with you at the moment? I know you love your music apps. I love using the Arpeggiator in GarageBand on the Mac. I have it hooked up to my B&O speakers. I have about seven synth sounds set up and go mad on my keyboard.
How many do you have with you at the moment? I know you love your music apps. I love using the Arpeggiator in GarageBand on the Mac. I have it hooked up to my B&O speakers. I have about seven synth sounds set up and go mad on my keyboard.
Do you mean realize or realise, not saying you made a mistake or anything but I always get those two mixed up. I always thought, realise was used to describe financial gains, realise your earnings, I don't know, not my sprache.
Right now I don't have much with me as the kids took a lot of what I had with them over the weekend, I had accumulated just way too many things in my tiny room so I decided to consolidate everything with that I had used the most over that past couple of months; iPad Air 2(previously just my iPad Air, obviously), Nokia 2520, Kindle HDX, Bose SoundLink (which regardless of what people think of Bose now because they created a cardinal sin by suing Apple, I think it's simply the best mini bluetooth speaker on the market today, period), Vivitek Q7 Projector (got to have my theater man) and of course my favorite music gadget of all time, the tiny but mighty Teenage Engineering OP-1. So for music creation right now I have been using FL Studio Groove, which I think is just a fantastic app, so much better than the iOS and Android FL Studio Mobile by like a factor of 10, a must have app and is actually worth buying a 300 dollar Nokia 2520 just to have it (they just lowered the price from 500 to 300, which makes it a must have device as far as I'm concern), really. The OP-1 though is one of those devices where you need nothing but the device itself to create wonderful music. It's only a 4 track system, but come on, if the Beatles could do it, than. With using just the built in microphone to record everyday sounds, grabbing sound bites from the radio feature and the hundreds of pre-installed samples I can create any type of genre with studio quality results. Unfortunately this little guy is financially out of the reach of most as at 800 dollars it's not a cheap toy. Which at the end of the day that's really what it is, even though musicians swear by it. So that's it, just three tablets, though the Nokia 2520 has a keyboard case and a full desktop browser and since I use a lot of web apps there isn't much I can't do it on it, Kindle is for my books and movies and the iPad, well I just got that so I'm currently in play mode at the moment, such a pretty thing, what's driving me batty though is that there is this really coolio little DJ app that I want to be able to play my super groovy mix's in the background with. I don't know how you guys just ignore the fact that you can't run anything in the background except for a few Apple apps like iTunes, aaahhh, it's so frustrating it actually hurts, Apple, really, you've added 2GB of memory, now please, for the love of my sanity, let us be able to actually utilize it, however pretty much everything else on it is nice. I'm gong to JailBreak it anyway soon, so I will be able install an app that will give me the capability to run what I want in the background, just need a little patience until such time someone JailBreak's the sucker. 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, aaaahhhh, patience is defiantly not my virtue, screw it, I'm just going to diddle myself blind, at least I'll defiantly know when the release date of that will be.
Hey, wiz's-wile'e-69's, can you please give until the morning to reply, I'm just really tired, nnnnnnoooooo, not because of that, although .................. okay now I'm extremely tired, night. Luv yeah!
Hey, wiz's-wile'e-69's, can you please give until the morning to reply, I'm just really tired, nnnnnnoooooo, not because of that, although .................. okay now I'm extremely tired, night. Luv yeah!
I would never keep a woman from her beauty rest. I actually fell a sleep last night before writing this, old age setting in.
I know strict product line discipline has been the secret sauce for Apple's success like some of ya'll are mentioning but I really feel like a 14 or 15" MacBook Air would do nicely. Healthy profit margin but still lower price than full-featured MacBook Pro, due to less graphics and CPU horsepower. Thoughts?
Also interesting point wizard about high dpi being easier on the eye. I actually noticed the same effect when I went to a reseller yesterday and looked at a rMBP. hm. I'd still place less priority on it than making the overall disply an inch or two larger, though.
Replace all actions used when you usually 'click' the trackpad. I had an iMac with the Magic Trackpad and I can tell you there are quite a few actions that require an actual 'click' and not a 'tap', it was a bitch whenever you tried to use the it while holding it in bed. Maybe you could even assign it to be 'right click' anywhere on the trackpad. Could be a whole new shortcut, or anything! My point it, its technology which allows further interaction with the product without influencing the design (which is an apple focus) and considering one of their products gets a second touch input (iWatch) and the Mac is rumoured to loose an input.. I believe its reasonable to think it could be possible.
Huh, I'm never one to say no to new tech, so sure, if you think it would help, bring it on.
Comments
retina display? Hm. Golf clap. Great for people with 20/20. How about reasonable entry level model prices and add a 14" or 15" MacBook Air option? And exploring creation of a Surface-Pro-like MBA variant?
The Mac Book Air could be seen as reasonably priced. In fact I have a hard time even finding anything that is actually cheaper and also in the same performance class.
retina display? Hm. Golf clap. Great for people with 20/20. How about reasonable entry level model prices and add a 14" or 15" MacBook Air option? And exploring creation of a Surface-Pro-like MBA variant?
15" is typically the most popular size with other brands, so I'm sure people would purchase one. Apple has been increasingly careful about spacing out their product lines by price range, so I really don't see that as likely.
The Mac Book Air could be seen as reasonably priced. In fact I have a hard time even finding anything that is actually cheaper and also in the same performance class.
It is, very much so but for the same price I think I would still prefer the Surface Pro 3, especially now that I got OSX working on it. It actually makes for a pretty good Mac but I won't be giving up my MacBook Air either anytime soon, nor my Lenovo X230T, another fantastic laptop.
are we likely to see any major upgrades in the macbook pro or the macbook air section next year and if yes then when?
please let me know if you have reliable source even though i know that it's very hard to predict what apple is going to launch next year. mention the source also. i am planning to buy a new system so i want to know if it's worth the wait or should i get one right now.
i do know that the broadwell processors will be incorporated surely next year but what else?
thanks
I just had a bit of a laugh here because in my entry lifetime I've personally owned one (1) laptop. That is it. I have had two IPads so far though. Apple certainly got a few features right in iPad as it is a lot more convienent for travel, web surfing and the like.
So this brings up the question just how many laptops can you realistically keep in play at anyone time? That is how many get used as opposed to sitting on a shelf somewhere.
It is, very much so but for the same price I think I would still prefer the Surface Pro 3, especially now that I got OSX working on it. It actually makes for a pretty good Mac but I won't be giving up my MacBook Air either anytime soon, nor my Lenovo X230T, another fantastic laptop.
I just had a bit of a laugh here because in my entry lifetime I've personally owned one (1) laptop. That is it. I have had two IPads so far though. Apple certainly got a few features right in iPad as it is a lot more convienent for travel, web surfing and the like.
So this brings up the question just how many laptops can you realistically keep in play at anyone time? That is how many get used as opposed to sitting on a shelf somewhere.
Hey, this is Relic you're talking about!
Why use one laptop when two will do the trick just as well? ????
I just had a bit of a laugh here because in my entry lifetime I've personally owned one (1) laptop. That is it. I have had two IPads so far though. Apple certainly got a few features right in iPad as it is a lot more convienent for travel, web surfing and the like.
So this brings up the question just how many laptops can you realistically keep in play at anyone time? That is how many get used as opposed to sitting on a shelf somewhere.
I will always have at least three. one is for testing and mad scientisty stuff, normally I will choose a ThinkPad X series as you can run anything on them, including obscure stuff like Solaris. Then their is my work, programming laptop which has to be bullet proof, traditionally that has been a MacBook Air and then the last for music creation, graphic and video work, though I now have two for all of that, a Surface Pro 3 and a recently acquired Panasonic ToughPad 4K (i7-3687U, Quadro K2000M, 256GB SSD, 16GB RAM), my husbands boss graciously gave this to me as a present, well, it was given to them as a gift from a sheiks son, seriously. My husband works at a private bank in Zurich, how cliche for Switzerland right. There is actually to of these bad boys and were stuck in a closet for a few months. My husband kept dropping hints to the president that his wife would love to at least play with one however he was constantly, but politely shrugged off until the chief came over for cocktails one evening to discuss a deal. While my husband was giving the grand tour of our house and they came across my office, the chief changed his mind about letting me have the Panasonic, he thought I was just another housewife who wanted to use it for shopping. He added that if anyone should have one it defiantly should be me, because of my current health situation and Über geekness, how sweet. Anyway, I thought the Panasonic would only have an i5 and 8GB of RAM as those were the specs I saw on the website but I was pleasantly surprised to find an i7 CPU and 16GB of RAM. The thing is massive and even though it does have a battery for about 5 hours of use I don't think anyone in their right mind would use it as a tablet. It's meant to be used flat on a desk. I'm thinking of getting a custom table top made where the tablet can fit flush into the desk, a nice piece of cherry wood as I like dark woods. My idea is to use it as a mixer and a drawing canvas as with the included digitized pen and resolution, you couldn't ask for a better PhotoShop and SketchBook Pro machine. Actually I have a lot more planned for it, air hockey on it is amazing, well pretty much any touch game is amazing on it.
Where I have cut back on is tablets, hurray for progress, I used to own 6 but now it will just be a Nexus 9 32GB, Nokia 2520 (still my favorite gadget for surfing and writing), 2 iPad Air 2's (I just ordered the second one, WiFi 64GB version, where the other one is an LTE, 128GB, both silver) and my Kindle HDX 64GB (I still very much like this little guy as it's fast (Qualcomm 800, 2GB RAM, 1080P), great battery life and it projects videos to a TV wirelessly better than anything I own, that and I just got a subscription to Kindle unlimited, yes I can use any of my tablets to use this service with but what can I say, I'm a purist). I gave my son the Nvidia Shield, which was always the plan, fantastic little Android tablet by the way and I couldn't recommend it enough, especially when Nvidia Grid is finally up and running, my daughter got the previous iPad Air model and my little Nooky Glow. I sold the Nexus 10 in anticipation for the new Nexus 9. So you see I've become more sensible, nah, who am I kidding, I'm as nutty as they come. I will even probably end up getting another iPad Air 2 as the first 2 will be connected to tablet arms on my desk which will be stationary and then the other will be inserted into that ultra cool keyboard case from ClamCase.
Desktop computer wise is where I haven't gotten completely nuts, not yet anyway. I still have a mutant HP Z800 station which contains a; dual Xeon X5660, 196GB RAM, 1x 240GB Samsung 840 SSD(system), 4 X 600GB SAS 15K RPM Hitachi (HP stamped) Raid 5, HP Quadro 6000, HP Tesla C2050, Intel Xeon Phi 3120A and a ASUS Xonar Essence STX. Everything was either bought on Ebay or from overstock auctions, it took a while to accumulate everything especially when I kept upgrading the components in the process, specifically the memory and the Quadro card, which I started out with a Quadro 4000, got the 6000 for only 180 dollars because it had a cracked, non-functioning fan, 23 dollars later and it worked perfectly, a gamble that paid off. Even though ever component was bought separately, everything except the Xeon Phi and Asus Xonar is an official HP component, even the memory so it is all HP and all beast if I do say myself. What's really nice about this machine is the motherboard, everything is laid out perfectly and it contained 3 PCI-e slots that were just far enough apart to accommodate those very large beefy cards, hey that rymes with just enough room to squeeze in a premium sound card like the Asus Xonar, which is, I believe as well as many others to be the best sound card for the money on the market.
I also have three Unix machines that are fully operational, though the SGI's are more for show at this point, I fire it up every once in a while. A SGI Tezro Desktop, 4x 1GHz R16000s, 8GB RAM, VPro V12, 2 X 73GB IBM HD's, DMediaPro DM3, DM5 and DM10 HD/SD Video I/O and audio boards with HDGVO, SGI Tezro Rackmount, 4x 1GHz R16000s, 16GB RAM, 2 x VPro V12, 2 X 73GB IBM HD's, it's used in conjunction with the desktop for extra power. Sun Ultra 45, 2 X 1.6GHz UltraSPARC IIIi CPU's, 16GB RAM, 4 x 146GB 15K RPM drives, 2 x XVR-2500, 24" SUN Monitor AI24P0. I kind of stole this system, it was my work computer before I had to resign. I never returned it and they never asked for it back. It was a 8,000CHF system new that still costs about 4,000CHF. It's nothing compared to what a good Xeon workstation can do but it's a fantastic Unix machine none the less, probably the best one that you can currently get without having to pay a fortune by going IBM. I'm still a Unix girl and will always have a pure Unix workstation in my life, there is nothing like it that is comparable.
Like I posted before I am serious about getting a Mac Pro and selling the HP, I figure I could get at least 2000 CHF for it, maybe more do to all of those wonderfull extras. I will than just get the Mac Pro base model and purchase the memory and the Xeon 12 core CPU separately as I can save and this is no joke guys, more than 1800 buckaroonies, if I go the Xeon 14 core route it'll be about 1100 dollars but still a huge savings none the less. Apple charges 3500 to bump the 4 core Xeon to the 12 core Xeon, Amazon sells the same 12 core that Apple uses for 2600 and that's retail folks. 300 bucks more, okay, I can let that slide, but 900 and again that's retail, you might as well spit into your hand, rub your backside, bend over and clinche. As an added bonus I know the manager of the computer store where I will be ordering the CPU and memory from so he's only going to charge me 2300 for the CPU and with the memory, same deal, 64GB DDR3 18000 ECC for 620 vs. the 1300 that Apple wanted to charge me, plus I'm getting Kingston RAMs. What I'm still on the ropes about is upgrading to the D700 graphics cards or not, as I feel it might just be a waste of money as OSX still can't combine their performance using CrossFire, a huge disadvantage if you ask me. So I'm thinking of taking the money I saved, 2800 bucks, from not upgrading to the D700's and buying the memory and CPU separately, than putting it towards the purchase of an Nvidia K10 Tesla card 2300 in which I will insert into an external ThunderBolt Case, 600, total: 2900. What are your suggestions and feelings on the matter guys?
So that is my current computer situation, I know it's a little on the extreme side and probably bat shitt crazy that any one person would own so much tech, and I didn't even include things like my Arm development boards, ChromeBox's, ChromeBook's, monitors with embeded ARM chips in them. It makes me happy though and at the end of the day it was all technically free anyway, thank you Apple.
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Hey, this is Relic you're talking about!
Why use one laptop when two will do the trick just as well? ????
Just two, sir you wound me.
Not sure I want to quote this, looks like somebody has a future writing the replacement for War and Peace.
Work hardware doesn't count. It isn't like I will ever need a Swiss bank account. Why would he thing that. Besides most house wives are surfing for porn. After all how much can one actually buy on line. Sweetness around here comes with a handle called Relic. So now we are building custom furniture around the computer hardware. You know a report on those new iPads from a Uber geek would be very welcomed. So Mac UNIX isn't good enough for you? One of the reasons I switched back tot he Mac in 2008 was the fact that Mac OS was UNIX at its heart. The previous Mac was a Mac Plus. I kept that Mac Plus for a very long time until it became unbearable performance wise. I liked the concept but the operating system suck and of course back then the hardware was nothing to speak of performance wise. That may be true but the vast majority of people buying a Mac Pro don't care about CPU and RAM upgrades. It is a tool purchased with an expected amount of support and performance. I think the intention is to use the other GPU card as a compute accelerator. Remember Apple has never courted the gaming community with its Macs so CrossFire means little to them or most of their customers. Maybe we will see CrossFire support later but I've not been any signs from Apple that they care. What do we think? Pretty simple really, it depends. Cop out I know but it is true. The first thing to realize is that for some uses the TB link will limit your performance. On top of that is you buy the uprated GPU cards you will already have a very good compute card built right into the Mac Pro.
Hey spread some of that free around.
A comment or two on the Mac Pro. For one I'd seriously wait for the next revision with the hopes that it would ship with a next generation Xeon. A GPU update wouldn't be bad either. What the Mac Pro needs more than anything is a much faster memory subsystem as having all those cores in one chip does result in bottle necks. So The dream Mac would come with new Xeon's, new GPU's and Fast RAM. The really hot emissions producing dream would be Memory Cube memory but I'd settle for high end DDR4 RAM.
Edit: having read your post, I realise my error.
How many do you have with you at the moment? I know you love your music apps. I love using the Arpeggiator in GarageBand on the Mac. I have it hooked up to my B&O speakers. I have about seven synth sounds set up and go mad on my keyboard.
Edit: having read your post, I realise my error.
How many do you have with you at the moment? I know you love your music apps. I love using the Arpeggiator in GarageBand on the Mac. I have it hooked up to my B&O speakers. I have about seven synth sounds set up and go mad on my keyboard.
Do you mean realize or realise, not saying you made a mistake or anything but I always get those two mixed up. I always thought, realise was used to describe financial gains, realise your earnings, I don't know, not my sprache.
Right now I don't have much with me as the kids took a lot of what I had with them over the weekend, I had accumulated just way too many things in my tiny room so I decided to consolidate everything with that I had used the most over that past couple of months; iPad Air 2(previously just my iPad Air, obviously), Nokia 2520, Kindle HDX, Bose SoundLink (which regardless of what people think of Bose now because they created a cardinal sin by suing Apple, I think it's simply the best mini bluetooth speaker on the market today, period), Vivitek Q7 Projector (got to have my theater man) and of course my favorite music gadget of all time, the tiny but mighty Teenage Engineering OP-1. So for music creation right now I have been using FL Studio Groove, which I think is just a fantastic app, so much better than the iOS and Android FL Studio Mobile by like a factor of 10, a must have app and is actually worth buying a 300 dollar Nokia 2520 just to have it (they just lowered the price from 500 to 300, which makes it a must have device as far as I'm concern), really. The OP-1 though is one of those devices where you need nothing but the device itself to create wonderful music. It's only a 4 track system, but come on, if the Beatles could do it, than. With using just the built in microphone to record everyday sounds, grabbing sound bites from the radio feature and the hundreds of pre-installed samples I can create any type of genre with studio quality results. Unfortunately this little guy is financially out of the reach of most as at 800 dollars it's not a cheap toy. Which at the end of the day that's really what it is, even though musicians swear by it. So that's it, just three tablets, though the Nokia 2520 has a keyboard case and a full desktop browser and since I use a lot of web apps there isn't much I can't do it on it, Kindle is for my books and movies and the iPad, well I just got that so I'm currently in play mode at the moment, such a pretty thing, what's driving me batty though is that there is this really coolio little DJ app that I want to be able to play my super groovy mix's in the background with. I don't know how you guys just ignore the fact that you can't run anything in the background except for a few Apple apps like iTunes, aaahhh, it's so frustrating it actually hurts, Apple, really, you've added 2GB of memory, now please, for the love of my sanity, let us be able to actually utilize it, however pretty much everything else on it is nice. I'm gong to JailBreak it anyway soon, so I will be able install an app that will give me the capability to run what I want in the background, just need a little patience until such time someone JailBreak's the sucker. 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi, 3 Mississippi, aaaahhhh, patience is defiantly not my virtue, screw it, I'm just going to diddle myself blind, at least I'll defiantly know when the release date of that will be.
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All that stuff...........
Hey, wiz's-wile'e-69's, can you please give until the morning to reply, I'm just really tired, nnnnnnoooooo, not because of that, although .................. okay now I'm extremely tired, night. Luv yeah!
I would never keep a woman from her beauty rest. I actually fell a sleep last night before writing this, old age setting in.
I would never keep a woman from her beauty rest. I actually fell a sleep last night before writing this, old age setting in.
I kept dozing off while I was typing, it felt like I was in a mini time warp, weird feeling.
I know strict product line discipline has been the secret sauce for Apple's success like some of ya'll are mentioning but I really feel like a 14 or 15" MacBook Air would do nicely. Healthy profit margin but still lower price than full-featured MacBook Pro, due to less graphics and CPU horsepower. Thoughts?
Also interesting point wizard about high dpi being easier on the eye. I actually noticed the same effect when I went to a reseller yesterday and looked at a rMBP. hm. I'd still place less priority on it than making the overall disply an inch or two larger, though.
sweet idea
I think the 'force touch' will not be incorporated for the Macbook Air, for it's one of the highlights of the Apple Watch.
Just had a thought...
Who else thinks the 'force touch' tech in the Apple Watch could be incorporated for the Macbook Air's new 'clickless trackpad'?
Why, what benfit could it possible bring?
Replace all actions used when you usually 'click' the trackpad. I had an iMac with the Magic Trackpad and I can tell you there are quite a few actions that require an actual 'click' and not a 'tap', it was a bitch whenever you tried to use the it while holding it in bed. Maybe you could even assign it to be 'right click' anywhere on the trackpad. Could be a whole new shortcut, or anything! My point it, its technology which allows further interaction with the product without influencing the design (which is an apple focus) and considering one of their products gets a second touch input (iWatch) and the Mac is rumoured to loose an input.. I believe its reasonable to think it could be possible.
Huh, I'm never one to say no to new tech, so sure, if you think it would help, bring it on.