Apple's new Touch Bar MacBook Pros and the future of Macs

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  • Reply 41 of 81

    Unfortunately the flawed belief that everyone wants the thinnest laptop possible

    This is exactly why people want these laptops. People buy these because they are thin and portable, do not heat, dissipate heat quickly preventing CPU throttling thus maintaining performance all the way. If they wanted bulky laptops they would buy PC laptops.

    They are thin because of the heat, they are made of aluminum because of its heat conductivity. Not because of Apple's obsession with thinness. iMacs are made of mobile components and as thin as possible because of the same heat issues. If Apple has an obsession with, this is with the heat, not with the thinness. Heat destroys your computer and kills its performance.
    williamlondonandrewj5790capasicumstevehjony0ration altenthousandthingswatto_cobra
  • Reply 42 of 81
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    nubus said:
    Rayz2016 said:
    Thinking about, I can see why ZDNet waded in to support Apple on this: the new Surface Pro also maxes out at 16GB.
    It is a sad day when we have to defend a MacBook Pro by comparing it to hardware from M$.

    Other mobile workstations have 32 GB RAM and real GPU power. You can even buy GPU docks for Windows computers (like we could with Apple Duo Dock). There is no excuse. Tim Cook was right in blocking the amalgamation of iPad and laptops. He should have taken the same stand on this combination of Air and Pro. 
    I wasn't actually comparing it to anything. I was simply wondering why ZDNet suddenly thinks that Apple machines are okay all of a sudden. Then I realised they are just defending the same decision made by Microsoft. 

    Going back to to your second point: Apple has identified a market where it can maximise its resources. If you believe you're not in it something out then move to Windows where there is a plethora of desktops crammed into poorly ventilated laptop bodies with 3 hours of battery life and a burnout time of 4 years. 


    edited November 2016 williamlondonandrewj5790ai46stevehjony0ration altenthousandthingswatto_cobra
  • Reply 43 of 81
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member


    Unfortunately the flawed belief that everyone wants the thinnest laptop possible

    This is exactly why people want these laptops. People buy these because they are thin and portable, do not heat, dissipate heat quickly preventing CPU throttling thus maintaining performance all the way. If they wanted bulky laptops they would buy PC laptops.

    They are thin because of the heat, they are made of aluminum because of its heat conductivity. Not because of Apple's obsession with thinness. iMacs are made of mobile components and as thin as possible because of the same heat issues. If Apple has an obsession with, this is with the heat, not with the thinness. Heat destroys your computer and kills its performance.
    I have a Mac laptop that is coming up to eight years old. It has outlasted two Dells, one HP and one Asus machine. I do that think that's just bad luck. 


    williamlondonanomecapasicumai46jony0ration altenthousandthings
  • Reply 44 of 81
    dreyfus2 said:
    sflocal said:

    The 16GB limit is a hard limit because of Intel.  Not Apple.  People need to accept that and get over it.  I don't want Apple putting in a desktop CPU in a laptop and then people complain about heat and battery life.  16GB (for now) is plenty and makes a good balance between power and mobility.  If you're running 4 VM's 24x7 and every MacOS app concurrently, it's great that it can but perhaps you should be looking for a desktop machine.

    That is just wrong on every level. The i7 quad core CPUs in the MBPs DO support up to 32 GB of DDR4 RAM (Dell and HP laptops using exactly the same CPUs can be bought with 32GB. I know, because I have one. And no, wrong again, there are no desktop CPUs involved anywhere.) Yes, there is a penalty on battery life (less than 10% overall) since it is "regular" DDR4 LV and not LPDDR4, but if I want 9 hours and 32 GB or 10 hours and the 16 GB RAM limit from 2007 should be a choice. Apple does not need to offer dozens of configurations like others, but two configurations should be doable.
    Using desktop RAM in MBP, even if possible, would make the machines bulky, even the 16 GB ones, and just because of that single reason, Apple would lose more customers than it would gain with 32 GB.
    edited November 2016 williamlondonandrewj5790capasicumstevehjony0ration alwatto_cobra
  • Reply 45 of 81
    Apple is certainly steaming ahead with product differentiation. I imagine all iOS devices gaining wireless charging from wOS devices - I reckon there will be more of them in the future, not just watches. And this will be the end of Lightning.

    The iPads will always be suited to quad-speaker systems and Pencil operation, and always touchscreen-centric. Macs will never have touch screens - just use a Mac with the Magic Touchpad: Apple has focussed touch interface gestures right there. And the MacBooks will continue outperforming anything else available at the same price.

    It's only a matter of time before wireless becomes the only form of connection for power and data, but with iOS and wOS, and W1, the building-blocks are already there and being reinforced. 

    The GB-bandwidth of Macs will take longer to progress to complete wireless, but I'm sure Apple has the steps in place. 

    At no point can I agree that Apple should do what anyone else is doing. I only hope that Apple's competitors continue making forging their own, unique, paths. Returning to a mono-style of wintel would be truly awful.
    williamlondonanomeration al
  • Reply 46 of 81
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    Nobody will ever need more than 256k of memory. 
    I see what you did there. :-)

    But if folk stepped back for a moment and actually did some research (as the professionals they claim to be would do) they would discover a few things such as:

    The laptop top has the fastest SSD in the market. 
    The laptop has a custom SSD controller and software which is the result of 4 years work. 

    They may also realise that a new native file system will land next year that will tuned for SSDs. 

    All this would tip tip them off that Apple wants to use SSDs as though they were RAM. To do that they need custom controllers, high speed drives and an overhaul to the file system. 

    So Apple agrees, but rather than increasing RAM, they are looking to make that 2TB memory block behave as an extension to RAM.

    williamlondonandrewj5790capasicumai46stevehjony0fastasleepration altenthousandthingswatto_cobra
  • Reply 47 of 81
    Rayz2016Rayz2016 Posts: 6,957member
    brakken said:
    Apple is certainly steaming ahead with product differentiation. I imagine all iOS devices gaining wireless charging from wOS devices - I reckon there will be more of them in the future, not just watches. And this will be the end of Lightning.

    I have to agree. I think Lightning will be stay on the phone and iPad for a few years yet, but Apple wants zero ingress. 
    ai46
  • Reply 48 of 81
    "At this point, it should not be surprising that the world's most successful mobile device maker [...] is designing [...] machines to fit the needs of the broadest possible mainstream audience." 
    Well, yes and no.

    Apple didn't became Apple by targeting mainstream audience.

    Macs were (and are) cool because an elite of cool rich professional creative people consistently chose them. And pro creatives used macs for a reason: the experience was flawless.

    Millions of people own a Mac because they secretly dreamed to be (or wanted to have fun trying) graphic designers, music producers, photographers, DJs.

    But nowadays there's a new category which now everyone secretly dreams to be: developers.

    That’s why I think software developers with high and uncommon system requirements should not be considered less important just because they are a small market.

    Macbooks had a firewire 10 years ago, and 99,9% of users didn’t need it. But that was a wise decision: music producers and video makers used it. 
    Cool people used firewire, cool people's Mac experience was flawless, so they keep buying Macs.

    Apple should be really careful not to loose the developers.
    They are the cool and rich creative people now.




    Donvermo
  • Reply 49 of 81
    nubusnubus Posts: 355member
    Rayz2016 said:
    Apple has identified a market where it can maximise its resources. If you believe you're not in it something out then move to Windows where there is a plethora of desktops crammed into poorly ventilated laptop bodies with 3 hours of battery life and a burnout time of 4 years. 
    I would rather go to Canada than switch to Windows. Even at this time of year  :)

    In the past Apple provided us with a choise of 2-3 distinct series of portables. With 3 different desktop computers, 3+n different phones, watches, and tablets - it should be possible to do more. We have to remember this isn't just about Pro users not getting a Pro tool. It affects the iBook/Air users as well. Students and families have to pay a premium for a screen that present colors they can't use for producing content to print or web.

    I agree with you that Ziff-Davis is off in comparing Surface to MBP!
    randominternetpersonration al
  • Reply 50 of 81
    williamhwilliamh Posts: 1,032member
    williamh said:
    The only problem I have with the MBP is the price and yet I find this article to be condescending BS. 
    Okay. then how about this article?

    http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/thomas-grove-carter/one-professionals-look-at_b_12894856.html

    which is referenced in this post
    That other article, in contrast , is respectful and well written. 
  • Reply 51 of 81
    It's a great computer, the only problem I have with it is the price! I think that that's probably really the problem for most people, even if they pretend they have high philosophical reasons for not buying it.
    MarianoGiustirandominternetperson
  • Reply 52 of 81
    mshambaughmshambaugh Posts: 1unconfirmed, member
    "There's no need to exaggerate reality into Facebook-style, factually-loose imagery that's emotionally reinforced with rage-inducing, apocalyptic panic mongering." Wonder why this same philosophy wasn't applied to the (relatively silly) article posted on AI yesterday about the supposed doom and gloom that faces Apple as a result of the recent election.
  • Reply 53 of 81
    misamisa Posts: 827member
     What most people don't understand is that a "pro" computer isn't defined by the hardware it has. Its defined based on your needs as a user.
    Failing to satisfy those needs doesn't mean that it isn't "pro" for other uses.
    It falls short of being "Pro" as in Professional, it's really just "Pro" the marketing alternative for "Premium" which means "Prosumer" not Professional.

    A Pro device has to suit all Professional uses. Take a look at DSLR and Video cameras.

    A Pro DSLR costs between $600 and $10,000. A Pro Video camera costs between $5000 and $60000. A "Professional" computer like the Mac Pro can be excused if it costs $10,000 fully kitted out for Photography, Video Production, or Audio production. But one configuration of Mac Pro would never one-size-fits-all all of them because the GPU parts don't need to be overkill for Photography or Video production, and can be repurposed as OpenCL DSP's in all non-3D production purposes, but if all you do is Photoshop and work with conventional film/non-DSLR photos, perhaps a fully kitted out MacMini is all you need. The current highest rated DSLR is the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV which costs $4500. It uses UHS-I SDXC cards, that is fine if you have a SDXC card reader for your computer, but a MacMini would already have this slot. That camera takes 6720 x 4480 14-bit raw pictures. That means at the minimum you need 240,844,800 bytes of memory simply to open the file. When you start working on the file you need that much memory in the GPU as well if it's GPU accelerated. This already pushes iGPU solutions into "painful to use" territory.

    So these MacBook Pro's are not photoshop tools (Professional Artists use a Wacom Cintiq which they hold on to for years, alternatives still only come with DVI-D or straight VGA.) Who's tools are they really for? The Videographer? Hardly. Take a look at the system requirements for 4K+ cameras. At best you're going to use a MacBook Pro for dailies, and not much else. Any serious editing or video effects work is going to be done at a studio with the highest end systems available.

    Which is why there is all this frustration over Apple not bringing back the 2010-style Mac Pro with a socket-2011 series upgradable chassis.  The MacPro that they came out with, was an interesting, but ultimately useless product for production. It would have been better off called "MacMini Pro", at least then it fits the marketing. I'm sure It's Pro enough for people using their iPhones as video cameras, but it's a complete joke to the film production industry, whom feel that Apple has abandoned it.

    Apple is not going to be able to survive on iterations of it's iPhone product forever, at best that has 3 more iterations left before there is no more performance improvements possible, much like all other electronics. We might see 14nm cpu's, we might even see 7nm, but that's not going to result in cheaper parts. The only way up then is to make products bigger again. Once we reach this plateau, it becomes like cars, where some people have to replace their iPhone's and iPads every year for business tax-write-off reasons, and everyone else hangs on to them for 7 years because there is not a significant change in the technology to warrant it. 

    So I hope Apple comes back and starts producing real Macbook Pro and MacPro's again that appeal to the Professional user, not just the prosumer. 
  • Reply 54 of 81
    misa said:
     What most people don't understand is that a "pro" computer isn't defined by the hardware it has. Its defined based on your needs as a user.
    Failing to satisfy those needs doesn't mean that it isn't "pro" for other uses.
    It falls short of being "Pro" as in Professional, it's really just "Pro" the marketing alternative for "Premium" which means "Prosumer" not Professional.

    A Pro device has to suit all Professional uses. Take a look at DSLR and Video cameras.

    A Pro DSLR costs between $600 and $10,000. A Pro Video camera costs between $5000 and $60000. A "Professional" computer like the Mac Pro can be excused if it costs $10,000 fully kitted out for Photography, Video Production, or Audio production. But one configuration of Mac Pro would never one-size-fits-all all of them because the GPU parts don't need to be overkill for Photography or Video production, and can be repurposed as OpenCL DSP's in all non-3D production purposes, but if all you do is Photoshop and work with conventional film/non-DSLR photos, perhaps a fully kitted out MacMini is all you need. The current highest rated DSLR is the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV which costs $4500. It uses UHS-I SDXC cards, that is fine if you have a SDXC card reader for your computer, but a MacMini would already have this slot. That camera takes 6720 x 4480 14-bit raw pictures. That means at the minimum you need 240,844,800 bytes of memory simply to open the file. When you start working on the file you need that much memory in the GPU as well if it's GPU accelerated. This already pushes iGPU solutions into "painful to use" territory.

    So these MacBook Pro's are not photoshop tools (Professional Artists use a Wacom Cintiq which they hold on to for years, alternatives still only come with DVI-D or straight VGA.) Who's tools are they really for? The Videographer? Hardly. Take a look at the system requirements for 4K+ cameras. At best you're going to use a MacBook Pro for dailies, and not much else. Any serious editing or video effects work is going to be done at a studio with the highest end systems available.

    Which is why there is all this frustration over Apple not bringing back the 2010-style Mac Pro with a socket-2011 series upgradable chassis.  The MacPro that they came out with, was an interesting, but ultimately useless product for production. It would have been better off called "MacMini Pro", at least then it fits the marketing. I'm sure It's Pro enough for people using their iPhones as video cameras, but it's a complete joke to the film production industry, whom feel that Apple has abandoned it.

    Apple is not going to be able to survive on iterations of it's iPhone product forever, at best that has 3 more iterations left before there is no more performance improvements possible, much like all other electronics. We might see 14nm cpu's, we might even see 7nm, but that's not going to result in cheaper parts. The only way up then is to make products bigger again. Once we reach this plateau, it becomes like cars, where some people have to replace their iPhone's and iPads every year for business tax-write-off reasons, and everyone else hangs on to them for 7 years because there is not a significant change in the technology to warrant it. 

    So I hope Apple comes back and starts producing real Macbook Pro and MacPro's again that appeal to the Professional user, not just the prosumer. 
    How much time have you spent with the new MBP? I'm jealous. You must have tried it for a couple weeks at least to know so much about how terrible it is as a "real" pro machine (whatever subjective definition you give that).
    ai46MarianoGiustistevehjony0fastasleepration al
  • Reply 55 of 81

    Unfortunately the flawed belief that everyone wants the thinnest laptop possible

    This is exactly why people want these laptops. People buy these because they are thin and portable, do not heat, dissipate heat quickly preventing CPU throttling thus maintaining performance all the way. If they wanted bulky laptops they would buy PC laptops.

    They are thin because of the heat, they are made of aluminum because of its heat conductivity. Not because of Apple's obsession with thinness. iMacs are made of mobile components and as thin as possible because of the same heat issues. If Apple has an obsession with, this is with the heat, not with the thinness. Heat destroys your computer and kills its performance.
    Thanks, I get the heat issue. If I want a really thin machine I could always choose the MacBook which is running a low power chip simply to reduce heat and power usage.... but I don't! The point I was trying to make is that the trade offs of moving the MB Pro line to be even thinner negate many of the reasons it has been considered a Pro machine. The keyboard is awful and the lack of USB A ports mean that you need an adapter for everything. This may work for some people and I am cool with that but it doesn't work for me or for many others. I am happy with the size of the 2015 MB Pro as it is a good balance between portability and features. I don't need it to be thinner or smaller and the trade offs mean that the new MB Pro doesn't work for me. I am sure there will be plenty of people that it works for but the reality of the backlash against the design shows that it also doesn't work for many others. Neither side is right or wrong, they just have their own needs and in this case Apple has forced a design onto the market that clearly doesn't meet a lot of peoples needs. That is not a positive step for Apple and their muddled reaction shows they are not focused on delivering solutions for their core or strategically important markets but are simply focused on a mass market machine with a Pro label but which doesn't really deliver a Pro solution. What Apple should have done is created a 3 tier laptop family with this new design in the middle. They can still do this by creating a much more pro machine at the top end with a new marketing approach like Pro Plus or similar but I doubt it will ever happen. The Apple culture has changed and they seem to be unwilling or unable to deliver a Mac line that feeds different market segments. If they were focused on this they would have introduced a Skylake version of the Mini 6 months ago and updated the Pro which hasn't had any update in years.
  • Reply 56 of 81
    Amazing laptop. Underwhelming base RAM/SSD configurations given the base price.
    ai46MarianoGiusti
  • Reply 57 of 81
    misa said:
    The current highest rated DSLR is the Canon EOS 5D Mark IV which costs $4500. It uses UHS-I SDXC cards, that is fine if you have a SDXC card reader for your computer, but a MacMini would already have this slot. That camera takes 6720 x 4480 14-bit raw pictures. That means at the minimum you need 240,844,800 bytes of memory simply to open the file. When you start working on the file you need that much memory in the GPU as well if it's GPU accelerated. This already pushes iGPU solutions into "painful to use" territory.

    So these MacBook Pro's are not photoshop tools (Professional Artists use a Wacom Cintiq which they hold on to for years, alternatives still only come with DVI-D or straight VGA.) Who's tools are they really for? The Videographer? Hardly. Take a look at the system requirements for 4K+ cameras. At best you're going to use a MacBook Pro for dailies, and not much else. Any serious editing or video effects work is going to be done at a studio with the highest end systems available.


    240,844,800 bytes = roughly 240 MB. That's not actually a difficult file to open or work on in Photoshop for an 8GB laptop, much less a 16GB MBP. 
    capasicummacplusplusMarianoGiustistevehjony0fastasleepration al
  • Reply 58 of 81
    For those who complain about the writing in this article, I'd like to see you do better, especially for a technical article.

    Daniel I am interested in an article from you about the "future of the macbook pro" and how it would fit into the professional's ecosystem. While there has been much to do about the donglapocalypse, I'm thinking it's actually a clue to the future. I'm interested in those of us who use our laptop on the go and "plug in" when we are at our office/desk for a quicker more optimised experience--docking station if you must. This is where I see things going....suffer the portability gap while away but plug in via fast bus pci-USBc-TB3 ports--Matrix--when in the office/home. Then there is the touch bar coordination between 'on the go' and at home/office....I would certainly rather use a external keyboard with a touch bar with laptop in clamshell jacked into storage-montors-external-gpu-ethernet, and the like, and just kiss my desktop goodbye---since that is what's happening to desktops anyway. A bus like TB3 makes that possible for the first time even if it is not as fast (yet) as a system bus, and a local wireless connection is just out of the question.

    I invite you to speculate.
    jony0ration alwatto_cobra
  • Reply 59 of 81
    Soli said:
    4) You're not likely to get more than 16GiB RAM until 2018 when LPDDR4 arrives with Cannonlake. Apple could have an entire Kaby Lake update for the new MBP that still maintains a max of 16GiB LPDDR3 RAM.
    Strange that HP sold an Elitebook four years ago capable of taking 32Gb of DDR3. Ok, it did use a desktop CPU but for VM use it was fantastic. Can't get anywhere near that even today with Apple.
    Intel have really dropped the ball here in recent years. Mediocre speed updates and ... well a bit less power and USB-C.
    I don't like the loss of the SD Card. most Photographers I know use them (even some Pro's).
    Yes I know that you can get an adapter but these get lost or forgotten.
    So you travel 24 hours to the other side of the world and then you realise that your SD card reader is back at home. Not everywhere has them available. So you are basically stuffed once your set of cards is full.
    With a SD reader built in, you don't even have to think about not taking it with you.
    I can't afford to not have the SD reader with me on my travels.
    Adapters are far too easy to forget/lose.

    As a result, Apple has lost me as a laptop customer after 12 years. No more. My 2015 15in MBP will be the last one I buy. Lets hope that they don't fuck around with the iMac too much (if they ever update it). Sorry but that is the honest truth.
    What if you get to the other side of the world and you forgot your camera?  Or your passport?  Or you power supply?  I would hope "professionals" would have a checklist of essentials and have a system for not forgetting them.
    MarianoGiustistevehwilliamlondonration alnolamacguywatto_cobra
  • Reply 60 of 81
    zoetmbzoetmb Posts: 2,654member
    I'm going to have to disagree with many of your assumptions and comments:
    - Your comments about your own needs are nothing but anecdotal.
    - While I understand that Apple is a company that wants to make money and therefore will build what sells, they're not necessarily building what's desired and/or needed.  And there's also usually a big difference between what sells to the masses and quality.  IMO, Apple has an arrogance that makes them think they know better than what their users do about their needs.  In a few cases, that might be true, especially when wanting to drive the technology forward.  But in most cases, it's not, especially for true pro users who understand their business needs, apps and workflow.  
    - You seem to think that the difference between 'too big and heavy too lug around' and Apple's definition of what to include is binary.   There are stages in-between and the way Apple could have and should have dealt with that is by offering choices. 
    - You can rationalize Apple's decisions all you want, but there is no question in my mind that Apple is far more interested (and obsessed) in form than function.
    - For a machine that costs upwards of $2400 (and $4299 fully tricked out), please don't tell me about how I can make up for Apple's failings by using third-party solutions.
    - By rationalizing that most people don't need all the power that 'pros' are asking for, all you're doing is making a case to not buy this machine in the first place.  If someone is mainly a consumer of content and spends their day on Facebook, YouTube and doing work using Office applications and maybe uploading their photos to the machine, they don't need a machine like this at all.  They can buy a $400 Wintel machine or an iPad.  
    - Apple's technology has brought DOWN the cost of SSDs?   Give me a freaking break.  To go from 512GB to 2TB costs $1200!!!.    The Cloud is not a universal solution for everyone, especially pro video users.  I really don't want to split my files to different drives - I want everything on the laptop and I'm approaching 1TB now.   If I buy a new MBP that I expect to last for at least five years, I need at least the full 2TB.    Again, most people may not need it, but then they probably don't need this machine at all.  
    - Although I was originally freaked about the machine only including USB-C ports, I'm okay with it now that I see (non-Apple) adapters on sale for $9 (assuming that they both work and last).    Having said that, it still makes Apple hypocritical because they only care what the machine looks like in ads, not in real use where pros will have a bunch of dongles hanging out.
    - Rationalizing that had Apple included the dongles, they would have been e-waste is ridiculous.   Did you think that people would just toss them in the trash?   Besides, Apple could have included a coupon that gave each purchaser a choice of two dongles and if not used for dongles, they could have been an iTunes credit or a discount on accessories or something.   And at the very least, they should have included a USB-C to Lightning port cable or do they not think that MBP buyers are iPhone or iPad users?
    - Although most of my camera bodies used CF, not SD cards, so I personally never used the SD card slot, I still think Apple should have kept it.   It's not a deal breaker, because memory card readers are cheap (although I would have to buy a new one or stick an adapter on the one I have), but it's one more example of Apple's obsession with having a clean design take precedence over the way people actually use the machines.   Although one could also argue that because some newer top-of-the-line cameras like the Nikon D5 uses XQD cards, there's too much diversity to choose just one memory card slot type. 
    - Rationalizing the choice to eliminate the MagSafe charging port is a losing proposition.   I realize that Apple's rationale is that you can now have power and signal over one cable, but it still doesn't make up for what we've lost by eliminating MagSafe.   And unless there's a MagSafe to USB-C adapter, all those extra power supplies people bought to keep at home/office, etc., WILL wind up in e-trash.   MagSafe is one feature which was probably more needed by home users than pro users, since most pro users wouldn't be in environments where they're tripping over cables.  
    - If Apple really cared about their users and stopped obsessing over how thin they could make the machine, they would go back to design that permits the end user to replace the battery, storage and memory.   Their arrogance in this regard really makes me nuts.   They probably think it help sales because users will have no choice but to buy a new machine when the storage or memory isn't enough.  But I think it hurts sales because it defers purchasing decisions or makes people (like me) so incredibly pissed at Apple that we just keep what we have until we absolutely have to upgrade.   

    Personally, I think you hurt your credibility and do yourself a disservice when you rationalize everything Apple does instead of praising the good design decisions and fairly critiquing the bad ones.   I think it's fair to say that for most people and especially for professional users, a slightly heavier and larger machine that does the job is far preferable to a smaller, lighter machine that doesn't, because if small and light is a priority, there are other machines that do that better and less expensively.  
    smxpRogueTwo
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