Apple files hint at re-engineered iMac and Mac Pro models, potentially without optical drives

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  • Reply 181 of 257


    I don't know about removing optical drives.  What about those who use iMovie or Final Cut to author home movies to share with friends and relatives?  How does one share a high quality version of the finished product?  Remember that broadband still is not available in many places except for 3g, which comes with bandwidth caps that make streaming HQ video prohibitively expensive.  


     


    Virtually everyone has DVD players, it's a reliable standard if you want to share home movies.  Isn't that the whole point of iLife?


     


    Sure, you can buy an external ODD for your Mac.  By that reasoning, Macs shouldn't come with boot drives, because it's easy to buy external HDDs and SSDs.  It's rather absurd to expend so much effort towards styling hardware only to hook up a bunch of ugly drives to it and make a rat's nest of cables on the back of one's desk.

  • Reply 182 of 257
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by Junkyard Dawg View Post

    No, better hardware in a not as pretty package that still works fine.


     


    Worse hardware in a pointless package. It might have been needed years ago; it isn't now.


     



    Originally Posted by Junkyard Dawg View Post


    Isn't that the whole point of iLife?



     


    Not since 2006, as iDVD hasn't received an update since then and isn't even available anymore. Discs are dead.


     





    By that reasoning, Macs shouldn't come with boot drives, because it's easy to buy external HDDs and SSDs.




     


    Nope, that's not it at all. This is about what people actually use. No one uses ADB ports, no one uses floppy discs, no one uses optical drives. It's a natural progression.

  • Reply 183 of 257

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


     


    But no one fullscreens their browser… That's crazy! Websites are only ever ~1,000 pixels wide, so I happily keep it like this:


     


    image


     


    It's all whitespace otherwise. 



     


    Sadly, there are a lot of Windoze dorks that insist on maximizing browser windows to full screen.  Yes of course it's pointless since web pages are usually in portrait format, but Windoze has unfortunately conditioned a lot of people to work in a very inefficient single-window mode.   If you go into an Apple store you can often see browsers covering the whole screen, with about 1/3 content and 2/3 blank space.

  • Reply 184 of 257
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post







    Tim Cook did hint that there would be "something really great". To me, that in no way refers to the same design and an Ivy Bridge Xeon dropped in. So it's either a totally rethought Pro or he just means the Haswell iMac or MBP will be good enough next year to drop it.


    He'd be drinking his own kool-aid. The imac can in some situations replace the single package mac pro. If someone is debating between imac and mac pro, they aren't looking at the 12 core as a potential machine. A big problem there is that there is little value at the low end of that platform as I've mentioned before. It still clips a portion of their customer base. If you look at people who bought a 12 core in 2010 and tell them look this 2014 imac can match the processing power of your machine, it will mean next to nothing. If it's matching at that point, this wouldn't motivate a new purchase if the prior thing is still working. If they need something more, just being able to match wouldn't cut it. In terms of gains in requirements, there are incremental and sharp gains at times. Looking at professional media based workflows it's common to be extremely conservative on software updates. The important thing is that the solution works. If the software doesn't run well, the typical options would be to update hardware or roll back the version. If the higher end machine is required at one time, being able to match it in a lighter machine years later generally means very little unless requirements have been outpaced by gains in the hardware. When I read words like "something really great" I see nothing but execu-speak. It would be cool to see a real update, but don't make the assumption that one replaces anything but the low end of the other. The possibility exists that the volume is below sustainable levels beyond that point so they're catering to those who would have purchased the single package model and just clipping the rest. I will say the supported gpu selection and some of the peripheral hardware is pretty weak on the mac pro. This may be a problem. You need to be able to work out a full solution, and thunderbolt doesn't provide that. If you see an increase in thunderbolt speeds come 2014, I'd give it two years beyond that to see some real developments on the PC end. When it comes to external solutions, the best possible solution would be to buy something from one vendor. Note how black magic put out a black magic intensity with a thunderbolt connection. If it wasn't such a limited market, you might see more products like that, but few companies will produce such a thing for OSX systems only given the inherent development costs.

  • Reply 185 of 257
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by the_steve View Post

    Sadly, there are a lot of Windoze dorks that insist on maximizing browser windows to full screen.  Yes of course it's pointless since web pages are usually in portrait format, but Windoze has unfortunately conditioned a lot of people to work in a very inefficient single-window mode.   If you go into an Apple store you can often see browsers covering the whole screen, with about 1/3 content and 2/3 blank space.


     


    Doesn't help that Apple added full-screening OS-wide absolutely no reason… Applications that need it should have it, but where it's self-defeating and even detrimental, it shouldn't be there at all.

  • Reply 186 of 257
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Doesn't help that Apple added full-screening OS-wide absolutely no reason… Applications that need it should have it, but where it's self-defeating and even detrimental, it shouldn't be there at all.

    Having a full screen OPTION isn't the problem as it's very handy for certain tasks, for certain apps, and certain display sizes. What I'd like to see is a browser that offered side by side browsing. Basically the tab is the second window within the browser and then the tabs build off of those. I'm surprised Opera has done something like this.
  • Reply 187 of 257
    tallest skiltallest skil Posts: 43,388member


    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post

    Having a full screen OPTION isn't the problem as it's very handy for certain tasks, for certain apps, and certain display sizes. What I'd like to see is a browser that offered side by side browsing. Basically the tab is the second window within the browser and then the tabs build off of those. I'm surprised Opera has done something like this.


     


    I was going to talk about Safari full-screen and mention exactly that, but decided against it. image

  • Reply 188 of 257
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    Marvin wrote: »
    [VIDEO]

    That ad is horrible. It's so bad I'd expect it to be concept from a Droid commercial. It's beyond pointless in selling the Power Mac because it ends by mentioning Pentium.
  • Reply 189 of 257
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    I was going to talk about Safari full-screen and mention exactly that, but decided against it. :lol:

    It looks like it works in Chrome on Windows. It seems like this is built from a Windows 7 API that is used in Aero Snap.


    It seems like there might be some 3rd-party solutions for Macs.

    edit: I just tested iSnap. It's pointless on my 13" MBP but it seems list it would be great on a larger display. It snaps quickly and accurately enough for me to want to test it when I get an iMac.
  • Reply 190 of 257
    izazaizaza Posts: 8member


    It would be very good as I do not remember the last time I have used an optical drive, Although they will make a compact external one available for those who needs one, I would buy it just incase. this idea will save your machine to heat up too, I am up for a retina display iMac without the optical drive.

  • Reply 191 of 257
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by iZaza View Post


     this idea will save your machine to heat up too



    It won't do anything of the sort in an imac. The odd isn't smooshed against a logic board or taking up a large portion of its space there. If you see thermal improvements, that won't be the cause.

  • Reply 192 of 257
    solipsismxsolipsismx Posts: 19,566member
    hmm wrote: »
    It won't do anything of the sort in an imac. The odd isn't smooshed against a logic board or taking up a large portion of its space there. If you see thermal improvements, that won't be the cause.

    I wouldn't say his comment is directly accurate, but indirectly it does allow a lot more freedom for the engineers which could result in better heat dissipation with a lower cost of engineering if they don't have to design around the ODD.
  • Reply 193 of 257
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by SolipsismX View Post





    I wouldn't say his comment is directly accurate, but indirectly it does allow a lot more freedom for the engineers which could result in better heat dissipation with a lower cost of engineering if they don't have to design around the ODD.


    You pointed out several months ago that the ODD makes up a large portion of the cubic internal area for the 13" mbp. Given that it's a portable and very compact machine, this represents a significant design savings. I don't so much see it the same way when examining a slim ODD in a stationary machine. I think the gains are much more minimal. One thing I do not mind is the reduced waste. I still have way too many old burned dvds that need to be recycled. Most are from years ago, and I need to find a place that recycles them in Los Angeles.

  • Reply 194 of 257
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    hmm wrote:
    If you look at people who bought a 12 core in 2010 and tell them look this 2014 imac can match the processing power of your machine, it will mean next to nothing. If it's matching at that point, this wouldn't motivate a new purchase if the prior thing is still working.

    You mean besides the fact it's 1/3 the price and includes a $1000 display. A $2000 2014 (maybe even 2013) iMac will outperform a $6200 2010 12-core MP and you get a 27" display worth $1000.

    While workstation components will likely still offer 3x more performance for 3x the price, they might just decide the iMac is fast enough for the customers they want to target. There are faster laptops than the MBA for under $1000 but Apple decided the MBA is fast enough for that demographic.

    Note what Cook said:

    "We also announced a MacBook Pro with a Retina Display that is a great solution for many pros."

    Even making the top-end iMac a 6-core would be enough.
  • Reply 195 of 257

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


    No one is begging for a Blu-ray drive in an iMac or Mac Pro anymore. That died in aught eight, even. It's quite evident that Apple isn't going to be supporting Blu-ray playback ever, as well.



    The pros we support are still hoping for it, not to mention a lot of individuals I talk to with.  I guess we could be a minority.


     


    I guess we shall see, if I'm wrong then there will be a lot of disappointed people but then I'm sure people will still buy Apple.

  • Reply 196 of 257
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post





    You mean besides the fact it's 1/3 the price and includes a $1000 display. A $2000 2014 (maybe even 2013) iMac will outperform a $6200 2010 12-core MP and you get a 27" display worth $1000.

    While workstation components will likely still offer 3x more performance for 3x the price, they might just decide the iMac is fast enough for the customers they want to target. There are faster laptops than the MBA for under $1000 but Apple decided the MBA is fast enough for that demographic.

    Note what Cook said:

    "We also announced a MacBook Pro with a Retina Display that is a great solution for many pros."

    Even making the top-end iMac a 6-core would be enough.




    Marvin stop saying the display is worth $1000. For $1000 you can buy a better display. Go buy an NEC. They're way better. The second point would be that even if you're only examining raw x86 performance, you couldn't buy a 2014 imac in 2010. Suggesting you know where usage needs will be at that time is just truly silly, and all I really stated was that if you're looking at the next imac and a discontinuation of the mac pro, the imac would likely capture many of those who would have purchased the lower mac pro option. You can buy a 16 core workstation today. Next year you will see 20 core workstations. The two simply do not fit the same market, yet the 12 core mac pro would have mostly fit in with such a market in 2010. Autodesk ported smoke over that year. I kind of doubt many of those licenses were running on imacs (although they dropped the prices, so it must have seen slow adoption rates).

  • Reply 197 of 257
    MarvinMarvin Posts: 15,309moderator
    hmm wrote:
    Marvin stop saying the display is worth $1000. For $1000 you can buy a better display.

    It's not the one you get with the iMac though. The one you get with the iMac costs $1000. It's cheaper if you shop around so I'll say $500-1000 to cover 3rd party displays too but the point is, you still have to buy a display with the MP so it has to factor into the cost.
    hmm wrote:
    Go buy an NEC. They're way better.

    Ok, it's $1168 then. There I was trying to save people money:

    http://www.amazon.com/NEC-PA271w-bk-27-Inch-2560-1440/dp/B003LD1QRY/
    hmm wrote:
    the imac would likely capture many of those who would have purchased the lower mac pro option. You can buy a 16 core workstation today. Next year you will see 20 core workstations. The two simply do not fit the same market, yet the 12 core mac pro would have mostly fit in with such a market in 2010. Autodesk ported smoke over that year. I kind of doubt many of those licenses were running on imacs (although they dropped the prices, so it must have seen slow adoption rates).

    There's no reason why some people wouldn't run Smoke on an iMac. Here's a post-production engineer demoing Smoke on an iMac along with (*cover your ears*) Thunderbolt storage:



    While he does mention that it's not a 'hero suite', that's mainly the storage configuration that can produce dropped frames. Something other than RAID 5 or SSD would give even better performance.

    I get that lots of people don't like the idea of using an iMac as evidenced in the following thread but there were also comments about the iMacs at NAB this year:

    "5 brand new workstations for just over $16,000 and they can run Avid, Adobe and Autodesk. I say bring it on! At NAB they were the talk of the show not only because of Smoke being more edit friendly but BECAUSE it was running on the iMac":

    http://forums.creativecow.net/thread/365/165

    The complaints about the iMac are not so much 'I can't use an iMac' but rather 'I don't want to use an iMac' and then rattle of the excuses of 'they're too slow' or 'they're too shiny' or 'they'd burn out, 'cos this work is too xtreem'.

    Yes 16-cores are better than 4-cores and 96GB RAM is better than 32GB RAM and a GTX 680 is faster than a 6970M but so what? If there's not enough people buying the machines Apple don't have to keep making them so don't be surprised if one day, they stop making them. Does that mean these jobs can no longer be done on the Mac platform? No, it doesn't. What it means is that these people will either choose to switch to another platform or buy the highest-end iMac and the next year, they'll buy the highest-end iMac again and the next and so on until they find that iMacs don't have to be upgraded all that often either.

    You talk about not knowing future workflows and the performance requirements but here's why that's bollocks. Mac Pro users hold onto their machines (as you've stated) for 3 years or more. Within 3 years, the highest-end iMac matches the highest-end Mac Pro. So, one of the following is true:

    - A Mac Pro becomes obsolete in under 3 years (not everyone will get the highest one) and unusable for the highest-end tasks
    or
    - A Mac Pro is suitable for 5-7 years or more of use and given that an iMac will match the highest-end Mac Pro within 3 years, it is also suitable for the highest-end tasks

    I'm not saying Apple will drop the MP for a Haswell iMac, I'm just saying they could. I'd rather see them build a personal supercomputer but it's easy for me to say that when I'm not footing the bill. You have to think about what you'd do if you were at the helm of such a valuable company looking at a product that is using up valuable design, engineering and manufacturing resources and making less than 2% of your company's revenue. On the other hand, if your values are in the creative industry, you know this kind of product has a place (albeit not an exclusive place, unlike what some people want to believe) in which case, you set out to build it the best way you know how. They're not doing that any more so they need to 'either shit or get off the pot'.
  • Reply 198 of 257
    alexralexr Posts: 2member


    Fact check: HD-DVD was not a Microsoft endeavor; it was Toshiba.


     


    Microsoft merely pushed out an HD-DVD add-on for the Xbox 360.

  • Reply 199 of 257
    hmmhmm Posts: 3,405member

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Marvin View Post





    true:

    - A Mac Pro becomes obsolete in under 3 years (not everyone will get the highest one) and unusable for the highest-end tasks

    or

    - A Mac Pro is suitable for 5-7 years or more of use and given that an iMac will match the highest-end Mac Pro within 3 years, it is also suitable for the highest-end tasks

    I'm not saying Apple will drop the MP for a Haswell iMac, I'm just saying they could. I'd rather see them build a personal supercomputer but it's easy for me to say that when I'm not footing the bill. You have to think about what you'd do if you were at the helm of such a valuable company looking at a product that is using up valuable design, engineering and manufacturing resources and making less than 2% of your company's revenue. On the other hand, if your values are in the creative industry, you know this kind of product has a place (albeit not an exclusive place, unlike what some people want to believe) in which case, you set out to build it the best way you know how. They're not doing that any more so they need to 'either shit or get off the pot'.


    I'm not even sure we disagree on that many points. 5-7 years would be a very long cycle if it's supposed to run the highest end tasks for the entirety of its service life.  Usually if something goes that long it's either a freelancer who had consecutive bad years or the machines are cycled down, which isn't that uncommon. Something used for a hero suite as you mentioned could end up on a junior editor's desk later. Such cycling isn't that uncommon. Again on the other points, I was saying it's not interchangeable with the dual package xeons of the same hardware generation. This had nothing to do with the percentage of Apple sales. I said if they were going to buy 16 core workstations, the proposition of an imac isn't likely to work. I also indicated it's a much better match relative to the mac pro quad option which likely makes up a large portion of mac pro sales due to its price. It's true that you are going to clip the upper end unless those guys are buying more computer than they really require. Regarding the display, you're ignoring that the thunderbolt display doubles as a docking station which helps justify its price, and the NEC is $1100 from B+H :D.


     


    In case you're wondering, I budget purchases on whether their total cost can be justified within 2 years. I update displays every 3-4 years depending on use (I track the hours and profile drift). Displays don't change that much. That is one area where it works or it doesn't, and I do track the drifting.  Sometimes things last longer, but that is my typical basis. The upgrades still have to be viable. If someone bought a new mac pro in 2010, it's unlikely that they'd replace it today. the elusive "6 core imac" concept still gives me a minor headache as so many people don't get why it's unlikely. It would mean using a separate board specifically for that cpu option. Apple hates that kind of fragmentation, not that I blame them. I've also seen that creative cow thread. I remember reading that same person mention somewhere that the imacs tend to handle the lighter duty work. I'd have to find it though.

  • Reply 200 of 257

    Quote:

    Originally Posted by Tallest Skil View Post


     


    Worse hardware in a pointless package. It might have been needed years ago; it isn't now.


     


     


    Not since 2006, as iDVD hasn't received an update since then and isn't even available anymore. Discs are dead.


     


     


    Nope, that's not it at all. This is about what people actually use. No one uses ADB ports, no one uses floppy discs, no one uses optical drives. It's a natural progression.



    Discs are not "dead", and it's silly to say they are.


     


    I think you're just saying no one uses optical drives because Apple is phasing them out.  You pretty much recite whatever is in Apple's latest marketing copy.  When Apple releases a new Mac Pro, you'll be gushing about how forward thinking it is, but if Apple were to EOL the Mac Pro, you would be denigrating everyone here who is critical of Apple's decision.  


     


    Out in the real world, DVDs and Blu-ray are widely used.  Are they on their way out?  Absolutely.  But there is nothing that replaces them when it comes to cheaply distributing high quality video.  If Apple decides to ditch optical drives then Apple users will have to deal with it, but a good portion of new Macs will be bought with an external drive that takes up valuable desk space and adds more cords to the rat's nest.  This is nothing at all like when floppy drives were ditched, at that time there simply wasn't any compelling reason to use floppy discs, and software was being distributed on optical discs.  At this time, in the real world, movies and video are still distributed on optical discs.  

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