Why would Apple leave money on the table? Let competitors catch up or surpass them? The wearable market is just getting started, and is projected to explode in the next 3-5 years. I suspect we'll see annual or near annual upgrades going forward.
Why? People aren't going to buy a new watch every year. And what are they going to update anyway? A slightly faster processor? This isn't like phones with big camera updates.
It's a new category - there are any number of changes or updates that can be made. Also, last I checked Apple isn't selling 200 million watches a year. They don't need to current owners to upgrade (though I suspect many will). They need to continue improving the products design and capabilities to get new customers onboard.
I am wondering if they are going to skip a 2016 hardware upgrade altogether, giving us only watchOS 3 instead, rolling out Watch 2 in 2017 with micro LED.
Thats nonsense! The entire industry has upgraded, and you say there's no real upgrades to these parts? Nuts! A double the performance Mac Pro could have been out already,mis Apple really wanted it to.
I'm concerned that they simply aren't interested. They just discontinued their display, stating that there are plenty of good third party displays to use. This is what they say when discontinuing product lines. They've pro-consumered some of their high end software too. Are they pushing us Mac Pro users to an iMac? I surely hope not. If they don't have a new model by the end of this year, I'm going to get very worried they won't ever have a new model. I hate to say so, but more and more Mac Pro users are moving to Windows. You won't want to believe that, but go to the pro video editing forums.
Please demonstrate the video card options that have been available. Remember that Apple uses AMD only. At best it would have been a minor bump.
If Apple had launched a new model in 2015, then another update this year with Thunderbolt 3, people would have whined about how their computer was already obsolete. With certain crowds, Apple is damned either way.
You're kidding? Don't you pay attention to what's happening? The cards in the 2013 Mac Pro are way outdated. AMD has a good three generations of new GPUs since then.
apple has always, in the past, updated their machines on a regular basis. They could have done so in 2014 and 2015, if they wanted to. Pros don't whine when new machines come out. We either buy them, and relegate the older models to secondary uses, or get rid of them while they have some value. When you're making money on your equipment, competition is everything. When your client asks why your competitor is doing the same job for less, or can do more, or better, it's because of the new machine. You're going to lose business. That's from 28 years of being with, and running a fairly large commercial photo lab here in NYC. You also amortize this. It's a capital expense. You get a lot of the money back.
I can't agree with that. In the past, Apple has upgraded its machines as often as 4 times a year, whenever a slightly faster PPC chip came out. Then, with Intel, it was twice a year. There's no excuse as to why the Mac Pro hasn't been upgraded since the late 2013 arrival of the "new" model. Intel has had several newer chip technologies arrive, and we've seen several generations of GPUs, as well as faster RAM and NAND.
I'd like to know what technical issues you're talking about.
One would assume just sticking new CPUs or GPUs in to the Mac Pro shell wouldn't be that difficult or consume a lot of resources. So if these parts are available why wouldn't a Apple just do one of their silent updates?
That's what I don't understand. When you're doing rendering, even a 10% improvement in speed is enough to to make a difference. If you're rendering a project for 10 hours, that's a whole hour off the time. It matters. But Intel has come out with chips with more cores each year, and each additional core, along with some improvements per core, makes a big difference. To say that it doesn't is simply showing that those people have no idea of what much professional work is about.
Seems that Apple is getting into the same game as Bluetooth: "It'll be better, next year."
yeah except that's horse manure. many of apple's products DO get better notably better, every year. certainly the ones the vast majority of their customers are exposed to.
Why would Apple leave money on the table? Let competitors catch up or surpass them? The wearable market is just getting started, and is projected to explode in the next 3-5 years. I suspect we'll see annual or near annual upgrades going forward.
Why? People aren't going to buy a new watch every year. And what are they going to update anyway? A slightly faster processor? This isn't like phones with big camera updates.
I think that reasoning is just plain wrong - there is no reason to make a new model this year, because most of the people that purchased last year won't upgrade. Seriously??? You think that all the people that will ever purchase an AW did so in year 1, and it is only upgraders? Do you live in the real world?
I know many people that are only now starting to think about getting an AW. Many are intrigued by Apple Pay on it, others had always planned on getting the second version. And many fall into the category of never really paying any attention to the fact that an Apple Watch existed (true story - few people pay attention to this stuff when it first comes out - and it takes years to seep into the public consciousness).
If Apple wants to grow this category and take leadership, they damn well better have a new Watch this year. It isn't the end of the world if they don't, but they will seriously impede their growth. And to be clear, a "new version" doesn't mean it has to look much (or any) different (though it helps), but they do need to keep the product itself fresh with better battery, improved SOC package, a new sensor, etc.
Why? People aren't going to buy a new watch every year. And what are they going to update anyway? A slightly faster processor? This isn't like phones with big camera updates.
I think that reasoning is just plain wrong - there is no reason to make a new model this year, because most of the people that purchased last year won't upgrade. Seriously??? You think that all the people that will ever purchase an AW did so in year 1, and it is only upgraders? Do you live in the real world?
I know many people that are only now starting to think about getting an AW. Many are intrigued by Apple Pay on it, others had always planned on getting the second version. And many fall into the category of never really paying any attention to the fact that an Apple Watch existed (true story - few people pay attention to this stuff when it first comes out - and it takes years to seep into the public consciousness).
If Apple wants to grow this category and take leadership, they damn well better have a new Watch this year. It isn't the end of the world if they don't, but they will seriously impede their growth. And to be clear, a "new version" doesn't mean it has to look much (or any) different (though it helps), but they do need to keep the product itself fresh with better battery, improved SOC package, a new sensor, etc.
A new one each year? Maybe, but only if they have a really good update, such as longer battery life. Adding a day would be a good reason.
but they also need new styles. As we know, watches are lifestyle products, and not everyone is going to want the same watch everyone else has, we can get thousands of different styles of phone and tablet cases, but obviously we can't do that with the watch. Will bands be enough? I don't know. I'm a watch owner. I like the different styles. Apple is likely looking into round, or square, cases as well.
Please demonstrate the video card options that have been available. Remember that Apple uses AMD only. At best it would have been a minor bump.
If Apple had launched a new model in 2015, then another update this year with Thunderbolt 3, people would have whined about how their computer was already obsolete. With certain crowds, Apple is damned either way.
You're kidding? Don't you pay attention to what's happening? The cards in the 2013 Mac Pro are way outdated. AMD has a good three generations of new GPUs since then.
apple has always, in the past, updated their machines on a regular basis. They could have done so in 2014 and 2015, if they wanted to. Pros don't whine when new machines come out. We either buy them, and relegate the older models to secondary uses, or get rid of them while they have some value. When you're making money on your equipment, competition is everything. When your client asks why your competitor is doing the same job for less, or can do more, or better, it's because of the new machine. You're going to lose business. That's from 28 years of being with, and running a fairly large commercial photo lab here in NYC. You also amortize this. It's a capital expense. You get a lot of the money back.
Um, what?
The entire GPU industry has been stalled the last few years due to being stuck at 28nm. And you don't stick gamer GPU's into the Mac Pro, you need GPU's with a lot of compute capability. Many of AMD's recent releases aren't targeted for that, so they wouldn't work.
The Mac Pro hasn't been Apple's fault. If you knew the technical issues at hand, you'd be hard pressed to decide when to update it too.
Bull. A company Apple's size and resources needs years to work it out? Not a chance. I have loved Apple, but we need to call a spade spade. They are consistently dropping the ball on the Mac business and now the iPhone business too by going to a 3-yr upgrade cycle. If they release one stinker or mediocre update with that kind of interval it would sink the product line.
You're kidding? Don't you pay attention to what's happening? The cards in the 2013 Mac Pro are way outdated. AMD has a good three generations of new GPUs since then.
apple has always, in the past, updated their machines on a regular basis. They could have done so in 2014 and 2015, if they wanted to. Pros don't whine when new machines come out. We either buy them, and relegate the older models to secondary uses, or get rid of them while they have some value. When you're making money on your equipment, competition is everything. When your client asks why your competitor is doing the same job for less, or can do more, or better, it's because of the new machine. You're going to lose business. That's from 28 years of being with, and running a fairly large commercial photo lab here in NYC. You also amortize this. It's a capital expense. You get a lot of the money back.
Um, what?
The entire GPU industry has been stalled the last few years due to being stuck at 28nm. And you don't stick gamer GPU's into the Mac Pro, you need GPU's with a lot of compute capability. Many of AMD's recent releases aren't targeted for that, so they wouldn't work.
Again, you don't know what you're talking about.
You are hopeless.
First of all, the pro cards and the gamer cards use the same GPU. The difference is in the drivers and the amount of memory. Apple designed their own graphics cards for the Mac Pro.
Secondly, there have been three releases of GPUs by ATI and Nvidia since 2013.
So we get from ATI:
28nm. 1H 2014: Hawaii VI 1.0 28nm. 2H 2014: Iceland and Tonga 2.0 28nm. 1H 2015: Maui VI 2.0 20nm. 2H 2015: Fiji and Treasure PI 1.0 20bn. 1H 2016: Burmuda PI 1.0 14nm. 2H 2016: Mid GPU PI 2.0
all of these are suitable. In early we'll get high end versions.
So they can innovate enough to update the watch yearly, but the iPhone is every three years now, and the Mac Pro, Mac mini, Thunderbolt Display, etc. is once in a blue moon? I don't understand their priorities anymore.
The Mac Pro hasn't been Apple's fault. If you knew the technical issues at hand, you'd be hard pressed to decide when to update it too.
Bull. A company Apple's size and resources needs years to work it out? Not a chance. I have loved Apple, but we need to call a spade spade. They are consistently dropping the ball on the Mac business and now the iPhone business too by going to a 3-yr upgrade cycle. If they release one stinker or mediocre update with that kind of interval it would sink the product line.
Come on demonstrate a little intelligence here, the issues aren't Apples but rather Intels! This especially in the case of the MBP and the Mac Pros. It only take a wee bit of your time to research just how much trouble Intel has had with the processor destined for the next MBP. A processor that just started shipping in low volume last month.
As as for the iPhone, all we have is rumors and guesses. You really don't know if there is a move to a 3 year cycle or simply a roadblock pushing things out a bit. Beyond that, again if you where informed, the whole chip industry has basically hit a roadblock as geometries aren't shrinking as fast as in the past and we are coming upon real physical limits for current chip technology.
Apple isn't subject to limitations that are any different than what their companies suffer from. If Apple has a year of stagnation in chip design so does everybody else. It is simple they don't control the technology, nor the rate at which scientist can advance the technology.
Don't even try to use the "home cards can't compute", they all have OpenCL.
Apple could have upgraded routinely if they didn't go in such an extremely proprietary direction. To suggest that the current state of the Mac Pro is anything but Apple's fault is laughable at best.
PC's just don't have this upgrade problem, it is unique to Macs. So who's problem is it really? Apple's.
So they can innovate enough to update the watch yearly, but the iPhone is every three years now, and the Mac Pro, Mac mini, Thunderbolt Display, etc. is once in a blue moon? I don't understand their priorities anymore.
The Apple Watch was introduced almost 2 years ago and has yet to be updated.
On planet Earth Apple watch was introduced about 14 months ago... Not two years..
Apple's use of OLED in the watch has more to do with the displays thinness, a major issue in smartwatches, then it has to do with efficiency. If backgrounds are black, or close to it, then, and only then, will an OLED show higher efficiency. But if it isn't, then there's no meaningful difference. If the background is while, or close to it, then efficiency is lower than that of LCD.
Most of my friends mechanical watches are thicker than my applewatch ...
That said i would welcome a thinner applewatch.
The Apple Watch was introduced almost 2 years ago and has yet to be updated.
On planet Earth Apple watch was introduced about 14 months ago... Not two years..
Exactly. And it takes a good year for Apple to assess a first gen device in the wild before getting too deep into what changes are most wanted for version 2. I am getting more convinced that the "tock" on the Watch tick-tock upgrade cycle will be software not hardware. When Watch becomes a more mature product with more years of use behind it, yearly hardware refresh will be more practical.
Apple's use of OLED in the watch has more to do with the displays thinness, a major issue in smartwatches, then it has to do with efficiency. If backgrounds are black, or close to it, then, and only then, will an OLED show higher efficiency. But if it isn't, then there's no meaningful difference. If the background is while, or close to it, then efficiency is lower than that of LCD.
Most of my friends mechanical watches are thicker than my applewatch ...
That said i would welcome a thinner applewatch.
Sure. One of my watches is a half inch thick and the thinnest is about 3/16. A friend wears one that is a good 3/4 thick.
but a lot of people who talk about smartwatches on line don't know much about watches, and have been complaining that smartwatches are too thick.
On planet Earth Apple watch was introduced about 14 months ago... Not two years..
Exactly. And it takes a good year for Apple to assess a first gen device in the wild before getting too deep into what changes are most wanted for version 2. I am getting more convinced that the "tock" on the Watch tick-tock upgrade cycle will be software not hardware. When Watch becomes a more mature product with more years of use behind it, yearly hardware refresh will be more practical.
As a watch owner who has several, I can say that for many watch owners, buying a new watch model every year just doesn't happen, unless they've got money oozing out of their pores.
i buy a new iPad every year, and a new iPhone every two years. The iPad, because of how I use it. But I don't expect to buy a new Apple Watch even every two years. I hope to keep them for at least three years, or even possibly four. After they mature, maybe five.
Exactly. And it takes a good year for Apple to assess a first gen device in the wild before getting too deep into what changes are most wanted for version 2. I am getting more convinced that the "tock" on the Watch tick-tock upgrade cycle will be software not hardware. When Watch becomes a more mature product with more years of use behind it, yearly hardware refresh will be more practical.
As a watch owner who has several, I can say that for many watch owners, buying a new watch model every year just doesn't happen, unless they've got money oozing out of their pores.
i buy a new iPad every year, and a new iPhone every two years. The iPad, because of how I use it. But I don't expect to buy a new Apple Watch even every two years. I hope to keep them for at least three years, or even possibly four. After they mature, maybe five.
Mostly agree. But wife is champing at the bit for my hand-me-down first gen Sport model, so second gen can't come fast enough for us.
Until they mature, I don't mind popping for a new watch every year as long as the feature curve is steep. At Sport level, the latest model is still cheaper than any other Apple platform save TV. Once the watch reaches iPad-like maturity, waiting two or three years won't cause us to miss much except fashion.
Comments
apple has always, in the past, updated their machines on a regular basis. They could have done so in 2014 and 2015, if they wanted to. Pros don't whine when new machines come out. We either buy them, and relegate the older models to secondary uses, or get rid of them while they have some value. When you're making money on your equipment, competition is everything. When your client asks why your competitor is doing the same job for less, or can do more, or better, it's because of the new machine. You're going to lose business. That's from 28 years of being with, and running a fairly large commercial photo lab here in NYC. You also amortize this. It's a capital expense. You get a lot of the money back.
That's what I don't understand. When you're doing rendering, even a 10% improvement in speed is enough to to make a difference. If you're rendering a project for 10 hours, that's a whole hour off the time. It matters. But Intel has come out with chips with more cores each year, and each additional core, along with some improvements per core, makes a big difference. To say that it doesn't is simply showing that those people have no idea of what much professional work is about.
I know many people that are only now starting to think about getting an AW. Many are intrigued by Apple Pay on it, others had always planned on getting the second version. And many fall into the category of never really paying any attention to the fact that an Apple Watch existed (true story - few people pay attention to this stuff when it first comes out - and it takes years to seep into the public consciousness).
If Apple wants to grow this category and take leadership, they damn well better have a new Watch this year. It isn't the end of the world if they don't, but they will seriously impede their growth. And to be clear, a "new version" doesn't mean it has to look much (or any) different (though it helps), but they do need to keep the product itself fresh with better battery, improved SOC package, a new sensor, etc.
but they also need new styles. As we know, watches are lifestyle products, and not everyone is going to want the same watch everyone else has, we can get thousands of different styles of phone and tablet cases, but obviously we can't do that with the watch. Will bands be enough? I don't know. I'm a watch owner. I like the different styles. Apple is likely looking into round, or square, cases as well.
The entire GPU industry has been stalled the last few years due to being stuck at 28nm. And you don't stick gamer GPU's into the Mac Pro, you need GPU's with a lot of compute capability. Many of AMD's recent releases aren't targeted for that, so they wouldn't work.
Again, you don't know what you're talking about.
Is does not appear so.
First of all, the pro cards and the gamer cards use the same GPU. The difference is in the drivers and the amount of memory. Apple designed their own graphics cards for the Mac Pro.
Secondly, there have been three releases of GPUs by ATI and Nvidia since 2013.
So we get from ATI:
28nm. 1H 2014: Hawaii VI 1.0
28nm. 2H 2014: Iceland and Tonga 2.0
28nm. 1H 2015: Maui VI 2.0
20nm. 2H 2015: Fiji and Treasure PI 1.0
20bn. 1H 2016: Burmuda PI 1.0
14nm. 2H 2016: Mid GPU PI 2.0
all of these are suitable. In early we'll get high end versions.
As as for the iPhone, all we have is rumors and guesses. You really don't know if there is a move to a 3 year cycle or simply a roadblock pushing things out a bit. Beyond that, again if you where informed, the whole chip industry has basically hit a roadblock as geometries aren't shrinking as fast as in the past and we are coming upon real physical limits for current chip technology.
Apple isn't subject to limitations that are any different than what their companies suffer from. If Apple has a year of stagnation in chip design so does everybody else. It is simple they don't control the technology, nor the rate at which scientist can advance the technology.
AMD FirePro W9100 (each)
16-32GB GDDR5, 512-bit, 320GB/s
2816 stream processors
5.24 teraflops
3DMark Fire Strike 1.1 Benchmark (with ONE card): 9746
AMD D700 (each)
6GB GDDR5, 384-bit, 264GB/s
2048 stream processors
3.5 teraflops
3DMark Fire Strike 1.1 Benchmark (with TWO cards): 10387
http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/1423405/fs/8739204
Yeah, the Mac Pro "wins" the benchmark, but it also has 2x the CPU cores and 2x the GPUs and just barely cuts down a single card.
( If you want to watch them both get spanked (not even the fastest benchmark for the top card there either): http://www.3dmark.com/compare/fs/1423405/fs/8739204/fs/6052658/fs/8333979 )
Don't even try to use the "home cards can't compute", they all have OpenCL.
Apple could have upgraded routinely if they didn't go in such an extremely proprietary direction. To suggest that the current state of the Mac Pro is anything but Apple's fault is laughable at best.
PC's just don't have this upgrade problem, it is unique to Macs. So who's problem is it really? Apple's.
but a lot of people who talk about smartwatches on line don't know much about watches, and have been complaining that smartwatches are too thick.
As a watch owner who has several, I can say that for many watch owners, buying a new watch model every year just doesn't happen, unless they've got money oozing out of their pores.
i buy a new iPad every year, and a new iPhone every two years. The iPad, because of how I use it. But I don't expect to buy a new Apple Watch even every two years. I hope to keep them for at least three years, or even possibly four. After they mature, maybe five.
Until they mature, I don't mind popping for a new watch every year as long as the feature curve is steep. At Sport level, the latest model is still cheaper than any other Apple platform save TV. Once the watch reaches iPad-like maturity, waiting two or three years won't cause us to miss much except fashion.