If it was not for people like me- I run a small publishing outfit and have done since 1996 - Apple would have gone bankrupt in the late 1990's.
Since purchasing my first Mac at University, a LCII, I have owned personally more that 20 Macs in total, among them laptops and desktops - for my line of work, the October 2009 27in iMac's have been good workhorses, particularly given one does not need the power of the Mac Pro.
Obviously, the majority of the Mac's I've owned have been for work purposes and not for showing off as the next best thing - I was even an early adopter of the first iPod - an eye opener when it first appeared and the iTouch, which I rate a great deal more than a iPhone - all iMacs I've ever owned have been covered by AppleCare and business contracts with Apple third parties.
So, in your misguided opinion, someone who was supporting Apple from its early days, stayed with the business during it struggle for survival in the mid 1990's and utilises its iMac's and Mac Mini's presently - i.e. I've purchased 6 post October 2009 iMac's, together with a Mac Mini server and and regular Mac Mini circa 2010 revision, my last 2 purchases in May last year - Apple should just 'Sh-T' on me and many users like me - that is small businesses and self employed.
Perhaps a little honesty would be helpful from Apple, particularly where business planning is concerned for new equipment, instead, all we get are whispers and rumours, fine for a consumer-focused business, not so fine for a business that services other businesses - at least Intel has the decency to show us roadmaps - I wonder where Apple would be if Intel run its business based on rumours and throwing surprises - the answer to that is no where.
I am no Apple Fanbois, I have used there products for a long time, but, if you think I'm upgrading all my business to Thunderbolt and USB-3 - quite a transition from FW800 - I'd like to know where I stand with hardware and what hardware to expect by the years end and a iMac designed and running on 2010 technology just does not cut it in terms of a three year investment, the minimum I expect my office machines to run for, preferably, 4 -5 years.
Not too much to ask is it - It is as far as you and Apple are concerned, hence they are losing business.
You expect to get 4 to 5 years of service on a Office machine? I have sold computers dating back to the mid-80's to small business, corporate and government. 3 years is normal. Anything more than that, I consider them lucky or they really don't have much in the way of needs (depends on the task they are used for0 I am saying this because it's the truth. Now, your computers still run the latest OS, right? It will still run the next release, right? As long as you don't abuse your system, it will still work. But expecting computers to last more than 4 to 5 years? I would change that mentality quickly. It just doesn't work that way anymore. MOST businesses that run their companies for optimal ROI and keeping current will usually hold on to a system for the duration of the service contract, which AppleCare is three years, after that, each year is just simply a bonus. I've got my 1st Gen Intel CoreDuo IMac running a whopping 2G memory with a 160GB drive. Do you think I am pulling my hair out? I would love to get a new iMac if they announced it, but I am trying to decide if waiting til next year to get one or just simply getting the MBP and a large screen would be better. I know that my system is a day to day situation and i cross my fingers daily, but you know what? I have ZERO hardware problems. That's right ZERO.
Plus, i got this Firewire/USB drive from Seagate that uses an adapter and they have a Thunderbolt adapter to use instead when I get ready to move to Thunderbolt. It is the GoFlex or GoFlex Pro for Mac ext drives. 5400 or 7200 rpm drives with Firewire/USB and Thunderbolt adapters. SLICK idea.
For once, I think Apple have just got it wrong this time. iMacs and Mac Pros are the bedrock of creative content on Macs, they ignore this at their peril. The cost of a joined up Apple ecosystem is it all needs to grow together.
I'm in a similar spot in terms of a decision on a new iMac - but I don't have heavy duty file needs right now so I can wait. But in your position, you may want to look at the relative merits of the 'year old' Sandy Bridge (tock) tech in the current iMac vs. the improvements you might expect from ivy bridge (tick). The big benefit from ivy appears to be reduced energy consumption, something I would definitely like to have. But the over all computing performance (your need) is more on the order of 10 percent or so - hardly an earth shattering improvement. Moreover, the graphics card in the 2011 iMac best model is superior to what you can get now with their new "flagship" (from the presentation yesterday) macbook pro. It's a damn powerful machine and way way better for your tasks than what you have now.
That said, I believe the comment made to Pogue was more likely about more fundamental redesigns of iMac and Mac pro then spec upgrades. i.e. they've just done a clearly funky upgrade to the mac pro and I sympathize with the frustration of those who need them; but, unless they do a spec bump on the video card for the pro, Apple apparently isn't doing anything big until next year when the Haslem processors (the next tock) start to roll out - they will bring big computing improvements to the pro. if I was a pro, I'd want to wait for that instead of the more modest improvements of current tech in terms of future proofing, but macpro is already behind two ticks and a tock.
But for the iMac you and I are interested in, I think the exec's comment was about bringing out the next generation iMac to match the notebooks - retinal display, perhaps dual SSD/hard drive etc. In the meantime, Apple may well come out with a mid term spec bump to the iMac with ivy bridge and maybe a modest graphics card update. It's easy for me to wait for August/September to see if that happens. But in your case, if you want to stay with OSX and are hampered by your current system, that upgrade won't blow your socks off compared to the fairly robust performance of the current iMac.
In terms of regrets analysis, note that this time next year, the next big improvement to intel chips will make a significant difference in terms of performance for more intensive work for the iMac and macbook pros. That's why I'll hold off till next year for upgrading my macbook pro (cheaper SSDs and huge gain in performance), but consider buying any interim improvement for the iMac that comes out in the next few months. But if there's nothing new by November, I'll wait for the first Haslem imac. What I like about the Pogue revelation is that it appears Apple is still committed to the desktop.
Other than I haven't bought a new computer in about 7 years, the iMac they have right now is WAY better than what i have.. I used to buy the top end model for whichever product i was buying at the time and would sell it about a year later and then bought then next top model for that flavor, but I can't do that right now. Of course Apple is still committed to the desktop. There will always be a need for the desktop for certain crowds of people. But they can only refresh the products when they feel they have a compelling reason and unfortunately many times they have to wait. Apple uses their own dogfood and I am sure people inside Apple would love to get their hands on a new iMac or MacPro, and they have to wait just like us.
For once, I think Apple have just got it wrong this time. iMacs and Mac Pros are the bedrock of creative content on Macs, they ignore this at their peril. The cost of a joined up Apple ecosystem is it all needs to grow together.
I think the iMac was something BEYOND their control and I think we find out that the MacPro is too. Wait and see, but don't say they blew it, they have to have a compelling upgrade and THEY have to rely on others to make these things.
I would expect any new iMac to appear before September. Probably mid-summer. Some do sell to college students so Apple either will have them before back to school or really wait until 2013. Waiting another year would surprise me.
Well you don't see any blind, deaf or handicapped people walking around with Mac Pros in their hand do you?
I sold Macs for a living for many years and I've impacted a lot of people's lives with iPads, iPhone/iPod Touch and the Universal Access features of Mac OS X. I've never impacted someone's life with a Mac Pro. Not discounting the Mac Pro or its lack of update cycle, but being mad because they didn't update your high end Mac doesn't discount their motives.
How do you know that the work done on people using Mac Pros hasn't improved your life or somebody elses?! Another stupid blinkered comment..
I will never own a Mac Pro, but I recognise the Mac creative legacy that sustained Apple for many years (when they needed it!) and carved out the reputation that Apple has today of it's user being creative people and understand that, whilst it may not be there most profitable product line, the people that use these machines are only enhancing apple's name and reputation.
Let's face it, Apple has so much money they don't know what to do with it, what would it have hurt them to either have released a completely revised Mac Pro range, it's small change for them, or at the very least made their plans clear to people whose livelihood depends on their software and hardware.
Tim Cook has recently made it clear that he has always been impressed by the loyalty and devotion shown by apple users but to be honest it seems to me (as an observer) that this is now all just lipservice and apple is now just exhibiting it's next corporate evolutionary step of starting to ignore it's userbase and doing what it thinks is best for $$ reasons, and this is just a slippery slope downwards...
I will never own a Mac Pro, but I recognise the Mac creative legacy that sustained Apple for many years (when they needed it!) and carved out the reputation that Apple has today of it's user being creative people
The machines high-end users were using during those bad years are vastly outperformed by pocket phones. When Apple was near bankruptcy, the spec was 200MHz PPC, 16MB RAM, 2GB HDD, 1MB VRAM, barely even had OpenGL, it was Quickdraw/RAVE - Apple's OpenGL alternative.
Back in those days, there was no such thing as a usable laptop so it's understandable that high-end desktops are regarded by some as the model that helped Apple when times were rough but when you look at the stats, buyers have over the years migrated to laptops as their needs and modern lifestyles are better suited by them.
You can't assume that someone who used a 200MHz beige box in 1997 watching online video in 160x120 trying to figure out which pixel the girl was, is currently demanding a 12-core Xeon E5 metal behemoth. It doesn't work like that. Many graphic designers back then will now be web designers and so many tasks that they struggled with back then can be done very easily on the consumer hardware.
Editing 4K video on a MBA with the RED Rocket while the session was being recorded live on a Ultrastudio 3D onto a Promise RAID. I think the new Retina MBP would be just ducky with two TB ports.
As SJ might have said...Boom.
And after the boom, people are blown away. Cue Forstall.
I think the retina MBP is almost the pinnacle of laptop design. I wish they'd made a 13" version but I guess the Air is where they are heading with the lower models. I prefer the box design to the tapering but they'll likely all end up iPad-like.
Editing 4K video on a MBA with the RED Rocket while the session was being recorded live on a Ultrastudio 3D onto a Promise RAID. I think the new Retina MBP would be just ducky with two TB ports.
Apple intentionally limits the product range and slows down the product cycle for a number of reasons (read the Steve Jobs book... its states it plainly0
- to coincide with seasonal consumer trends
- they only change something when they have something better to replace it - the Mac Pro is great design - what competing product would you suggest is anywhere close to the Mac Pro.... hmm, I thought so....
- to simply tell the story - Apple makes 'insanely great' products not a bunch of crap.
- to make it easier for customers to select the product they need - go figure which Sony product or pre 1997 Apple product you need... it's bewildering
- it effectively and efficiently reinforces brand recognition
Many Apple products have remained the same for far longer than competitors products. Apple has one style of keyboard and has had so for years, how many does microsoft have? Why do they need different styles? Why don't they just make one really good one?
- Mac Pro is not a consumer product, it's clearly a product for professionals.
- They do have something better, a whole range of better parts to put in it, parts they put in their laptop and iMac lines, to keep the specs from being over 2 years behind now.
- Specs from over 2 years ago != insanely great
- It does not make it easier to decide to purchase a Mac Pro when it has specs far behind the rest of Apple's line and much further behind a dell that's a quarter the price and now only lacks a nice case, component layout, and OS X - but has parts 2 years more advanced.
- The brand of the Mac pro has been one of power and performance. Then, in 2010, the specs stopped being refreshed in any significant way, and it now betrays the brand recognized by the case design.
I have no doubt that what Tim Cook promised for next year will be great and solve all these problems. But it's silly to argue they're not there, especially when Tim Cook himself acknowledged them.
Ahh, the elegant solution of external boxes and cables. Didn't Apple do a commercial once showing how cool lots of cables are?
Wasn't there an advert with the Mac Pro in it where they showed someone lugging a 40lb metal monster into their office, opening it up and installing $1,000+ raw PCI boards inside to show how elegant a solution it is?
No wait, I remember, they never advertise the Mac Pro. You'd think they would want people to know about how awesome it is at reducing cable clutter.
I don't get where this 'lots of cables' idea is coming from. First of all, in the worst case, it's one power adaptor and one Thunderbolt cable per device and they make I/O ports far more accessible. Would you rather get under your desk, haul out the workstation and connect cables at the back or have the I/O box sitting on the desk? Secondly, I thought 'real professionals' didn't give a damn about aesthetics. All of a sudden, a couple of extra cables is unbearable.
It's just the moving whine target again and again.
"So, is the only reason that you? used Windows to show that TB will run on windows? Or are there more reasons?
Great video by they way, pretty impressive.
ewilczyn 4 months ago @ewilczyn None - just because there are no real demos with? TB and Windows.
Running the same test on Mac 10.7 kicks @ss - mac users have no worries in the TB department. it's just really new for WIndows users to see it.
thanks,
DKH"
Keep moving the whine target though.
Y'know, you'd think that Apple and Intel going to all the bother of designing fast full-speed bidirectional multi-channel I/O that puts PCI on the outside in a port smaller than your fingertip that can host peripherals up to 100 metres away would impress 'real professionals'. It opens up the market for high-end peripherals to a much wider audience and reduce their price considerably.
The real problem is everyone can see where this is going. The lower-spec, high-volume machines are getting the attention, driving more and more people to a form factor that is undesirable to some.
When the Ivy Bridge iMac hits in the next couple of months going up against the ancient architecture in the Pro, more people decide it's not worth holding out and end up loving it. Shock horror that a real pro who bleeds a colour only reproducible in 10-bit would like a milled aluminum machine with a 27" LED backlit IPS display, SSD, a 32GB RAM limit, the fastest mobile GPU money can buy that holds its own against the most powerful desktop GPUs, all in the form factor of a display.
When the Ivy Bridge iMac hits in the next couple of months going up against the ancient architecture in the Pro, more people decide it's not worth holding out and end up loving it. Shock horror that a real pro who bleeds a colour only reproducible in 10-bit would like a milled aluminum machine with a 27" LED backlit IPS display, SSD, a 32GB RAM limit, the fastest mobile GPU money can buy that holds its own against the most powerful desktop GPUs, all in the form factor of a display.
Oddly, for me what is highly desirable for a MBA is not so hot for the much faster iMac.
The MBA + Sonnet + Utrastudio is still fairly portable. Pack what used to take a huge machine in your large laptop bag.
Hanging all that crap off the iMac not so much. I can live with the Rocket running slower on the MBA because it is SHARING 4 lanes vs having an 8 lane slot all to itself since I can easily take home with me or on the road.
On non-mobile desktop that's an annoying performance compromise to make. I want speed and I'd much rather have the ancient Pro over the iMac in that scenario.
Has the Mini ever been updated separately from the iMacs? Could Apple give it a refresh without any fanfare? Even though I'm interested in other brands too, a Mini with a quad-core i7 and discrete graphics card with loads of RAM would really get my attention.
The machines high-end users were using during those bad years are vastly outperformed by pocket phones. When Apple was near bankruptcy, the spec was 200MHz PPC, 16MB RAM, 2GB HDD, 1MB VRAM, barely even had OpenGL, it was Quickdraw/RAVE - Apple's OpenGL alternative.
Back in those days, there was no such thing as a usable laptop so it's understandable that high-end desktops are regarded by some as the model that helped Apple when times were rough but when you look at the stats, buyers have over the years migrated to laptops as their needs and modern lifestyles are better suited by them.
You can't assume that someone who used a 200MHz beige box in 1997 watching online video in 160x120 trying to figure out which pixel the girl was, is currently demanding a 12-core Xeon E5 metal behemoth. It doesn't work like that. Many graphic designers back then will now be web designers and so many tasks that they struggled with back then can be done very easily on the consumer hardware.
Yeah that's true, some tasks will run into the 16GB limit, the iMac at least takes 32GB. ReRam, hopefully next year, should take of this.
And after the boom, people are blown away. Cue Forstall.
I think the retina MBP is almost the pinnacle of laptop design. I wish they'd made a 13" version but I guess the Air is where they are heading with the lower models. I prefer the box design to the tapering but they'll likely all end up iPad-like.
You mentioned graphic designers so I found an old Quantel image like they used for broadcast graphics although I'm nowhere near old enough to remember these devices firsthand. Given the resistance to N-core scaling, it's possible that we'll see just a single package model at some point, like when the single package model can effectively take 10 or more cores. I don't think Apple has a fully viable replacement for a workhorse machine, but the question becomes what would properly service at least the vast majority of their mac pro customers. Assuming they're not overdue for an upgrade, most people can eat a generation of flat performance growth to stay on a given platform. The problem is when they're stuck a few generations back and waiting on a decent upgrade as newer hardware is available yet Apple chooses not to address it. I would say that there is still some value in performance boxes, and they should not come with soldered everything like the others. Looking at the top cpu choices in the mac pros, tagging that on to the replacement cost in the event of a logic board replacement could be really bad. I already wish they offered better rates on repairs for older machines.
Comments
Quote:
Originally Posted by 26Chrisr
If it was not for people like me- I run a small publishing outfit and have done since 1996 - Apple would have gone bankrupt in the late 1990's.
Since purchasing my first Mac at University, a LCII, I have owned personally more that 20 Macs in total, among them laptops and desktops - for my line of work, the October 2009 27in iMac's have been good workhorses, particularly given one does not need the power of the Mac Pro.
Obviously, the majority of the Mac's I've owned have been for work purposes and not for showing off as the next best thing - I was even an early adopter of the first iPod - an eye opener when it first appeared and the iTouch, which I rate a great deal more than a iPhone - all iMacs I've ever owned have been covered by AppleCare and business contracts with Apple third parties.
So, in your misguided opinion, someone who was supporting Apple from its early days, stayed with the business during it struggle for survival in the mid 1990's and utilises its iMac's and Mac Mini's presently - i.e. I've purchased 6 post October 2009 iMac's, together with a Mac Mini server and and regular Mac Mini circa 2010 revision, my last 2 purchases in May last year - Apple should just 'Sh-T' on me and many users like me - that is small businesses and self employed.
Perhaps a little honesty would be helpful from Apple, particularly where business planning is concerned for new equipment, instead, all we get are whispers and rumours, fine for a consumer-focused business, not so fine for a business that services other businesses - at least Intel has the decency to show us roadmaps - I wonder where Apple would be if Intel run its business based on rumours and throwing surprises - the answer to that is no where.
I am no Apple Fanbois, I have used there products for a long time, but, if you think I'm upgrading all my business to Thunderbolt and USB-3 - quite a transition from FW800 - I'd like to know where I stand with hardware and what hardware to expect by the years end and a iMac designed and running on 2010 technology just does not cut it in terms of a three year investment, the minimum I expect my office machines to run for, preferably, 4 -5 years.
Not too much to ask is it - It is as far as you and Apple are concerned, hence they are losing business.
You expect to get 4 to 5 years of service on a Office machine? I have sold computers dating back to the mid-80's to small business, corporate and government. 3 years is normal. Anything more than that, I consider them lucky or they really don't have much in the way of needs (depends on the task they are used for0 I am saying this because it's the truth. Now, your computers still run the latest OS, right? It will still run the next release, right? As long as you don't abuse your system, it will still work. But expecting computers to last more than 4 to 5 years? I would change that mentality quickly. It just doesn't work that way anymore. MOST businesses that run their companies for optimal ROI and keeping current will usually hold on to a system for the duration of the service contract, which AppleCare is three years, after that, each year is just simply a bonus. I've got my 1st Gen Intel CoreDuo IMac running a whopping 2G memory with a 160GB drive. Do you think I am pulling my hair out? I would love to get a new iMac if they announced it, but I am trying to decide if waiting til next year to get one or just simply getting the MBP and a large screen would be better. I know that my system is a day to day situation and i cross my fingers daily, but you know what? I have ZERO hardware problems. That's right ZERO.
Plus, i got this Firewire/USB drive from Seagate that uses an adapter and they have a Thunderbolt adapter to use instead when I get ready to move to Thunderbolt. It is the GoFlex or GoFlex Pro for Mac ext drives. 5400 or 7200 rpm drives with Firewire/USB and Thunderbolt adapters. SLICK idea.
For once, I think Apple have just got it wrong this time. iMacs and Mac Pros are the bedrock of creative content on Macs, they ignore this at their peril. The cost of a joined up Apple ecosystem is it all needs to grow together.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Jbach67
I'm in a similar spot in terms of a decision on a new iMac - but I don't have heavy duty file needs right now so I can wait. But in your position, you may want to look at the relative merits of the 'year old' Sandy Bridge (tock) tech in the current iMac vs. the improvements you might expect from ivy bridge (tick). The big benefit from ivy appears to be reduced energy consumption, something I would definitely like to have. But the over all computing performance (your need) is more on the order of 10 percent or so - hardly an earth shattering improvement. Moreover, the graphics card in the 2011 iMac best model is superior to what you can get now with their new "flagship" (from the presentation yesterday) macbook pro. It's a damn powerful machine and way way better for your tasks than what you have now.
That said, I believe the comment made to Pogue was more likely about more fundamental redesigns of iMac and Mac pro then spec upgrades. i.e. they've just done a clearly funky upgrade to the mac pro and I sympathize with the frustration of those who need them; but, unless they do a spec bump on the video card for the pro, Apple apparently isn't doing anything big until next year when the Haslem processors (the next tock) start to roll out - they will bring big computing improvements to the pro. if I was a pro, I'd want to wait for that instead of the more modest improvements of current tech in terms of future proofing, but macpro is already behind two ticks and a tock.
But for the iMac you and I are interested in, I think the exec's comment was about bringing out the next generation iMac to match the notebooks - retinal display, perhaps dual SSD/hard drive etc. In the meantime, Apple may well come out with a mid term spec bump to the iMac with ivy bridge and maybe a modest graphics card update. It's easy for me to wait for August/September to see if that happens. But in your case, if you want to stay with OSX and are hampered by your current system, that upgrade won't blow your socks off compared to the fairly robust performance of the current iMac.
In terms of regrets analysis, note that this time next year, the next big improvement to intel chips will make a significant difference in terms of performance for more intensive work for the iMac and macbook pros. That's why I'll hold off till next year for upgrading my macbook pro (cheaper SSDs and huge gain in performance), but consider buying any interim improvement for the iMac that comes out in the next few months. But if there's nothing new by November, I'll wait for the first Haslem imac. What I like about the Pogue revelation is that it appears Apple is still committed to the desktop.
Other than I haven't bought a new computer in about 7 years, the iMac they have right now is WAY better than what i have.. I used to buy the top end model for whichever product i was buying at the time and would sell it about a year later and then bought then next top model for that flavor, but I can't do that right now. Of course Apple is still committed to the desktop. There will always be a need for the desktop for certain crowds of people. But they can only refresh the products when they feel they have a compelling reason and unfortunately many times they have to wait. Apple uses their own dogfood and I am sure people inside Apple would love to get their hands on a new iMac or MacPro, and they have to wait just like us.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Banyan Bruce
For once, I think Apple have just got it wrong this time. iMacs and Mac Pros are the bedrock of creative content on Macs, they ignore this at their peril. The cost of a joined up Apple ecosystem is it all needs to grow together.
I think the iMac was something BEYOND their control and I think we find out that the MacPro is too. Wait and see, but don't say they blew it, they have to have a compelling upgrade and THEY have to rely on others to make these things.
I would expect any new iMac to appear before September. Probably mid-summer. Some do sell to college students so Apple either will have them before back to school or really wait until 2013. Waiting another year would surprise me.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Soundvision
Well you don't see any blind, deaf or handicapped people walking around with Mac Pros in their hand do you?
I sold Macs for a living for many years and I've impacted a lot of people's lives with iPads, iPhone/iPod Touch and the Universal Access features of Mac OS X. I've never impacted someone's life with a Mac Pro. Not discounting the Mac Pro or its lack of update cycle, but being mad because they didn't update your high end Mac doesn't discount their motives.
How do you know that the work done on people using Mac Pros hasn't improved your life or somebody elses?! Another stupid blinkered comment..
I will never own a Mac Pro, but I recognise the Mac creative legacy that sustained Apple for many years (when they needed it!) and carved out the reputation that Apple has today of it's user being creative people and understand that, whilst it may not be there most profitable product line, the people that use these machines are only enhancing apple's name and reputation.
Let's face it, Apple has so much money they don't know what to do with it, what would it have hurt them to either have released a completely revised Mac Pro range, it's small change for them, or at the very least made their plans clear to people whose livelihood depends on their software and hardware.
Tim Cook has recently made it clear that he has always been impressed by the loyalty and devotion shown by apple users but to be honest it seems to me (as an observer) that this is now all just lipservice and apple is now just exhibiting it's next corporate evolutionary step of starting to ignore it's userbase and doing what it thinks is best for $$ reasons, and this is just a slippery slope downwards...
The machines high-end users were using during those bad years are vastly outperformed by pocket phones. When Apple was near bankruptcy, the spec was 200MHz PPC, 16MB RAM, 2GB HDD, 1MB VRAM, barely even had OpenGL, it was Quickdraw/RAVE - Apple's OpenGL alternative.
Back in those days, there was no such thing as a usable laptop so it's understandable that high-end desktops are regarded by some as the model that helped Apple when times were rough but when you look at the stats, buyers have over the years migrated to laptops as their needs and modern lifestyles are better suited by them.
You can't assume that someone who used a 200MHz beige box in 1997 watching online video in 160x120 trying to figure out which pixel the girl was, is currently demanding a 12-core Xeon E5 metal behemoth. It doesn't work like that. Many graphic designers back then will now be web designers and so many tasks that they struggled with back then can be done very easily on the consumer hardware.
Yeah that's true, some tasks will run into the 16GB limit, the iMac at least takes 32GB. ReRam, hopefully next year, should take of this.
And after the boom, people are blown away. Cue Forstall.
I think the retina MBP is almost the pinnacle of laptop design. I wish they'd made a 13" version but I guess the Air is where they are heading with the lower models. I prefer the box design to the tapering but they'll likely all end up iPad-like.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
Either sell it and buy the Thunderbolt equivalent:
http://www.blackmagic-design.com/products/ultrastudio3d/
or use it in a PCI box:
http://www.magma.com/thunderbolt.asp
The price of the latter will drop over time.
Ahh, the elegant solution of external boxes and cables. Didn't Apple do a commercial once showing how cool lots of cables are?
Quote:
Originally Posted by nht
http://blogs.adobe.com/jnack/2012/01/editing-red-video-on-a-macbook-air.html
Editing 4K video on a MBA with the RED Rocket while the session was being recorded live on a Ultrastudio 3D onto a Promise RAID. I think the new Retina MBP would be just ducky with two TB ports.
As SJ might have said...Boom.
Hmmm. Windows 7 and Premiere Pro. Boom indeed.
Retina. iMac. End of story.
Quote:
Originally Posted by orange whip
... no... as melgross said... not really
Apple intentionally limits the product range and slows down the product cycle for a number of reasons (read the Steve Jobs book... its states it plainly0
- to coincide with seasonal consumer trends
- they only change something when they have something better to replace it - the Mac Pro is great design - what competing product would you suggest is anywhere close to the Mac Pro.... hmm, I thought so....
- to simply tell the story - Apple makes 'insanely great' products not a bunch of crap.
- to make it easier for customers to select the product they need - go figure which Sony product or pre 1997 Apple product you need... it's bewildering
- it effectively and efficiently reinforces brand recognition
Many Apple products have remained the same for far longer than competitors products. Apple has one style of keyboard and has had so for years, how many does microsoft have? Why do they need different styles? Why don't they just make one really good one?
- Mac Pro is not a consumer product, it's clearly a product for professionals.
- They do have something better, a whole range of better parts to put in it, parts they put in their laptop and iMac lines, to keep the specs from being over 2 years behind now.
- Specs from over 2 years ago != insanely great
- It does not make it easier to decide to purchase a Mac Pro when it has specs far behind the rest of Apple's line and much further behind a dell that's a quarter the price and now only lacks a nice case, component layout, and OS X - but has parts 2 years more advanced.
- The brand of the Mac pro has been one of power and performance. Then, in 2010, the specs stopped being refreshed in any significant way, and it now betrays the brand recognized by the case design.
I have no doubt that what Tim Cook promised for next year will be great and solve all these problems. But it's silly to argue they're not there, especially when Tim Cook himself acknowledged them.
Wasn't there an advert with the Mac Pro in it where they showed someone lugging a 40lb metal monster into their office, opening it up and installing $1,000+ raw PCI boards inside to show how elegant a solution it is?
No wait, I remember, they never advertise the Mac Pro. You'd think they would want people to know about how awesome it is at reducing cable clutter.
I don't get where this 'lots of cables' idea is coming from. First of all, in the worst case, it's one power adaptor and one Thunderbolt cable per device and they make I/O ports far more accessible. Would you rather get under your desk, haul out the workstation and connect cables at the back or have the I/O box sitting on the desk? Secondly, I thought 'real professionals' didn't give a damn about aesthetics. All of a sudden, a couple of extra cables is unbearable.
It's just the moving whine target again and again.
In the Youtube comments:
"So, is the only reason that you? used Windows to show that TB will run on windows? Or are there more reasons?
Great video by they way, pretty impressive.
ewilczyn 4 months ago
@ewilczyn None - just because there are no real demos with? TB and Windows.
Running the same test on Mac 10.7 kicks @ss - mac users have no worries in the TB department. it's just really new for WIndows users to see it.
thanks,
DKH"
Keep moving the whine target though.
Y'know, you'd think that Apple and Intel going to all the bother of designing fast full-speed bidirectional multi-channel I/O that puts PCI on the outside in a port smaller than your fingertip that can host peripherals up to 100 metres away would impress 'real professionals'. It opens up the market for high-end peripherals to a much wider audience and reduce their price considerably.
The real problem is everyone can see where this is going. The lower-spec, high-volume machines are getting the attention, driving more and more people to a form factor that is undesirable to some.
When the Ivy Bridge iMac hits in the next couple of months going up against the ancient architecture in the Pro, more people decide it's not worth holding out and end up loving it. Shock horror that a real pro who bleeds a colour only reproducible in 10-bit would like a milled aluminum machine with a 27" LED backlit IPS display, SSD, a 32GB RAM limit, the fastest mobile GPU money can buy that holds its own against the most powerful desktop GPUs, all in the form factor of a display.
Quote:
Originally Posted by nvidia2008
Retina. iMac. End of story.
The friggin iMac BUILT Apple- the center of the digital hub.
Here's hoping the iMac gets its own well deserved unveiling this summer- the 14th anniversary. Or will it be next year- the 15th?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
When the Ivy Bridge iMac hits in the next couple of months going up against the ancient architecture in the Pro, more people decide it's not worth holding out and end up loving it. Shock horror that a real pro who bleeds a colour only reproducible in 10-bit would like a milled aluminum machine with a 27" LED backlit IPS display, SSD, a 32GB RAM limit, the fastest mobile GPU money can buy that holds its own against the most powerful desktop GPUs, all in the form factor of a display.
Oddly, for me what is highly desirable for a MBA is not so hot for the much faster iMac.
The MBA + Sonnet + Utrastudio is still fairly portable. Pack what used to take a huge machine in your large laptop bag.
Hanging all that crap off the iMac not so much. I can live with the Rocket running slower on the MBA because it is SHARING 4 lanes vs having an 8 lane slot all to itself since I can easily take home with me or on the road.
On non-mobile desktop that's an annoying performance compromise to make. I want speed and I'd much rather have the ancient Pro over the iMac in that scenario.
Has the Mini ever been updated separately from the iMacs? Could Apple give it a refresh without any fanfare? Even though I'm interested in other brands too, a Mini with a quad-core i7 and discrete graphics card with loads of RAM would really get my attention.
Yep, and absolutely. Most—if not all—of its updates have been silent.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Tallest Skil
Yep, and absolutely. Most—if not all—of its updates have been silent.
I think when the form factor changed it got a mention.
Nope. That was silent, too.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Marvin
The machines high-end users were using during those bad years are vastly outperformed by pocket phones. When Apple was near bankruptcy, the spec was 200MHz PPC, 16MB RAM, 2GB HDD, 1MB VRAM, barely even had OpenGL, it was Quickdraw/RAVE - Apple's OpenGL alternative.
Back in those days, there was no such thing as a usable laptop so it's understandable that high-end desktops are regarded by some as the model that helped Apple when times were rough but when you look at the stats, buyers have over the years migrated to laptops as their needs and modern lifestyles are better suited by them.
You can't assume that someone who used a 200MHz beige box in 1997 watching online video in 160x120 trying to figure out which pixel the girl was, is currently demanding a 12-core Xeon E5 metal behemoth. It doesn't work like that. Many graphic designers back then will now be web designers and so many tasks that they struggled with back then can be done very easily on the consumer hardware.
Yeah that's true, some tasks will run into the 16GB limit, the iMac at least takes 32GB. ReRam, hopefully next year, should take of this.
And after the boom, people are blown away. Cue Forstall.
I think the retina MBP is almost the pinnacle of laptop design. I wish they'd made a 13" version but I guess the Air is where they are heading with the lower models. I prefer the box design to the tapering but they'll likely all end up iPad-like.
You mentioned graphic designers so I found an old Quantel image like they used for broadcast graphics although I'm nowhere near old enough to remember these devices firsthand. Given the resistance to N-core scaling, it's possible that we'll see just a single package model at some point, like when the single package model can effectively take 10 or more cores. I don't think Apple has a fully viable replacement for a workhorse machine, but the question becomes what would properly service at least the vast majority of their mac pro customers. Assuming they're not overdue for an upgrade, most people can eat a generation of flat performance growth to stay on a given platform. The problem is when they're stuck a few generations back and waiting on a decent upgrade as newer hardware is available yet Apple chooses not to address it. I would say that there is still some value in performance boxes, and they should not come with soldered everything like the others. Looking at the top cpu choices in the mac pros, tagging that on to the replacement cost in the event of a logic board replacement could be really bad. I already wish they offered better rates on repairs for older machines.