Come on! I think it's pretty damn obvious that for the last X years, Apple has been designing to form over function. Ive may have said it's how a thing works, but it's not the result and it has the credibility of a war hawk saying they only care about peace. It is quite obvious that Apple is most certainly obsessed with thinness, having no seams in the case and with the new MacBook Pros only having one kind of port, I bet, because Ive thinks it looks better when viewed from the side. If Apple really cared about how something works, they'd stop removing functionality when they "upgrade" applications and would provide a machine with upgradable memory, replaceable battery and replaceable storage. They seem to go out of their way to prevent any of those things. And I don't think Ive gives a damn what these machines look like when they're used in the real world and actually connected to other components.
Yup. Apple executives don't live in the real world. They're million/billionaires who have other people do the hands-on work for them.
Here's an example remoting to an iMac 5K using the Screens App
I can do all that using a MBP 15" retina logging into my iMac 5k,-----Whoop----- which is the only way I can edit server files when not on the local network because of security restrictions, but everything is so tiny, I waste a ton of time zooming in and out and is also prone to mistakes when the text is so small.
I'm doing this from my iPad with the screen zoomed in -- very easy.
As others have said, it does seem Apple's only able to concentrate on one product these days. Back in the mid 90's they had heaps of products which was really their downfall - though at least they did frequently bring out new models - and they do seem to be going that way again lately (watch straps, anyone?). They should have discontinued the 2015 MBP and replaced it with the touch bar model at the same (bumped) price the 2015 MBP is at.
As far as the Mac is concerned generally, this "great pipeline" that Cook keeps going on about is either incredibly long, or needs Dyno-Rod. Over and over he has said "we have some great products in the pipeline", then he eventually comes out with the touch bar MBP. That's not particularly "great", Tim. Ive's OCD over thinness is partly the reason, you can't fit powerful CPUs and GPUs into a thin machine. I don't care about thin, I want the computer to be an actual computer I can install drives in, upgrade RAM etc, not a fashion icon.
When buying a portable notebook, I definitely want thinness -- thinner is less mass which is less weight. That makes carrying it much more convenient. I want a fast SSD, the faster the better. I certainly don't want removable drives.
The MBP with TouchBar and TouchID is a great machine. The reviews and user reviews have been very positive. I love my 2014 rMBP because it still flies, but I'd love to have one of these. So why do you think it's not a great portable?
Thinness which results in you carrying a bagful of dongles wherever you go? Whose weight adds up. The 2015 MBP isn't heavy, and it has a full compliment of useful ports. Obviously I meant removable drives on a desktop, but still, they could have kept the SD card reader in the MBP.
See the above, + battery life and too expensive.
A bag full of dongles? Seriously?
Yeah, 'dongle-gate' is a lot of teeth-gnashing nonsense. I'd rather spend my money on a notebook that will need fewer dongles over time, rather than one that needs more later. USB-C is the standard moving forward. As you upgrade peripherals, they'll all have USB-C, so you'll be emptying your "bag full of dongles" over time. A new notebook now that uses up space with old USB (and other) ports means you'd soon be buying dongles to accommodate new USB-C peripherals, the speed and utility of which would then be throttled by your built-in legacy USB-3 (or slower) ports.
It amuses me that many of the same people who complain about the new MBP not having next year's processor will also complain about it having USB-C ports.
Here's an example remoting to an iMac 5K using the Screens App
I can do all that using a MBP 15" retina logging into my iMac 5k,-----Whoop----- which is the only way I can edit server files when not on the local network because of security restrictions, but everything is so tiny, I waste a ton of time zooming in and out and is also prone to mistakes when the text is so small.
I'm doing this from my iPad with the screen zoomed in -- very easy.
Edit:
Add the screen shot from my iPad:
You are not telling me anything that I'm not already aware of but I don't use an iPad for complex text editing because it sucks. Selecting text is a nightmare even when zoomed in. Even trying to drop a cursor is hit and miss. Absolutely no way in hell would that be an improvement over a Mac for programming.
The problem with remotely zooming in is that then you have to pan and scroll. It is very easy to lose your place and start editing in the wrong line of code.
It may be possible to do all that with an iPad sidecar, but that's less convenient than just sliding my finger over a screen that's right where I'm already looking.
If Apple were to enhance support for iPad sidecar (I like that description), e.g. faster wired connection/interaction, interface options, etc, you could access the controls on the main (non-touch) display using the sidecar... the could be (optionally) display a cursor and trigger tactile and visual feedback while manipulating controls (buttons, sliders, etc.) on the main screen.
...
IMO, a Touch ComputerUI (direct or sidecar) isn't mainstream [yet] because there are no good solutions available at a reasonable price -- but the potential is certainly there!
OMG. It exists. It's free. It even works over wired ethernet. Given the larger iPad Pro there's enough real estate for an indie project and if you are a pro you likely have access to a frigging editing bay and a higher end physical control deck.
That's quite an impressive looking app!
It is interesting that Avid found a way to enhance the interface of their video editing app with the iPad, and Apple has yet to do this for FCPX.
I ordered the 2 adapters so I can connect my iPad Pro directly to the Mac Ethernet port -- looking forward to some good playtime over the holidays!
Maybe the next iPad Pro will have a USB-C/TB 3 port!
Here's an example remoting to an iMac 5K using the Screens App
I can do all that using a MBP 15" retina logging into my iMac 5k,-----Whoop----- which is the only way I can edit server files when not on the local network because of security restrictions, but everything is so tiny, I waste a ton of time zooming in and out and is also prone to mistakes when the text is so small.
I'm doing this from my iPad with the screen zoomed in -- very easy.
Edit:
Add the screen shot from my iPad:
You are not telling me anything that I'm not already aware of but I don't use an iPad for complex text editing because it sucks. Selecting text is a nightmare even when zoomed in. Even trying to drop a cursor is hit and miss. Absolutely no way in hell would that be an improvement over a Mac for programming.
The problem with remotely zooming in is that then you have to pan and scroll. It is very easy to lose your place and start editing in the wrong line of code.
I agree about complex text editing.
The Screens app mitigates some of that with its arrow keys... What I think would really help is an iPad Case/KB with a trackpad/cursor. That way, those tasks that are better done on the kb/trackpad could be don just as they are done on a laptop. And the trackpad gestures could be used instead of many touch gestures on the screen.
It is pretty easy to tell you are replying on your iPad because it is so tedious to remove all the unnecessary nested comments that you just let them be included. That is one of the downsides of iPad. A lot of things are just a pain in the ass to actually execute.
I'm on an iPhone right now because my iPad has less than 10% charge and my Mac is in the home office and I'm in the living room.
My feeling about the iPad vs the MBP is that if weight is the primary differientation, I'll stick with the Mac except for casual communication and content consumption when it is possibly more convenient to use the iPad.
stimpy said: I've seen it so many times and I have 8 adapters for my current stuff and have to go buy 6 more for USB-C. Losing a floppy is brave, making stuff where your two current products MBP an iPhone dont plug together with the out of the box items is just weird.
Really? 6 more adapters? Name them. I bet there is a USB-C hub that replaces them with 1 unit.
USB-C to TB,Ethernet,DVI,VGA,FW800, oh yeah and USB3. They are all in my bag along with more
FW800 was last used in an Apple computer maybe 6+ years ago (2012 omitted it).... and you still are carrying around a FW800 dongle.... sounds like you just like dongles for the heck of it....
Or he doesn't think it's acceptable to throw away a FireWire 800-based device just because Apple has abandoned FireWire for a format that hasn't gone anywhere (thunderbolt) or a format that has inferior throughput, wastes CPU, and even interferes with wifi (USB2/3).
I'm pretty pissed at M-Audio/Avid for dumping my very expensive audio interfaces just as a matter of corporate convenience. Re-buying $1500 audio interfaces (to replace devices that still work but have no driver support) every time the industry decides to engineer some obsolescence is wasteful and grotesque. We're not talking 5.24" diskettes, parallel port, or RS232 here. If thunderbolt hadn't ended up so ridiculously complicated and expensive (like maybe if it had just been an optical format from end to end as originally developed, instead of requiring a "smart [expensive] cable"), maybe it would've replaced FireWire already... by companies providing new devices that actually utilize the bandwidth of the new i/o format. Instead, we have companies like Access still using USB 1.1, a few companies using thunderbolt as a costly addon to USB-rated devices, a few USB 3 devices, and everyone else still selling USB 2 devices. Hell, we rarely had FireWire itself used properly by manufacturers (almost always breaking daisy chaining by leaving off the second port), but it did tend to work better than the USB versions of things (except for booting on frickin' lame-ass PCs).
This industry is disgustingly wasteful of resources/materials, as well as consumer money and time. I have zero issue with people who want to keep using the hardware for which they paid large sums of money. Just because it's not a problem for you to repeatedly buy the same gadget over and over (because some manufacturer decided to make the interface obsolete) doesn't mean everyone else is okay with that (or even should be okay with it).
In many industries, RS232 is still being used on industrial hardware because it provides valuable low-level utility that has been lost to modern CPU and OS-controlled interfaces. It seems primitive until you examine the reasons the manufacturers kept using the old tech. I myself thought it was insane how old tech was still being used, but it was being used for low cost and reduced complexity in mission-critical operations. Consumer tech isn't remotely similar. It becomes troublesome when pro and consumer tech bleed together. The pros are forced to throw away perfectly good equipment to suit the consumer market preference to re-sell the same goods again and again every quarter.
stimpy said: I've seen it so many times and I have 8 adapters for my current stuff and have to go buy 6 more for USB-C. Losing a floppy is brave, making stuff where your two current products MBP an iPhone dont plug together with the out of the box items is just weird.
Really? 6 more adapters? Name them. I bet there is a USB-C hub that replaces them with 1 unit.
USB-C to TB,Ethernet,DVI,VGA,FW800, oh yeah and USB3. They are all in my bag along with more
FW800 was last used in an Apple computer maybe 6+ years ago (2012 omitted it).... and you still are carrying around a FW800 dongle.... sounds like you just like dongles for the heck of it....
In many industries, RS232 is still being used on industrial hardware because it provides valuable low-level utility that has been lost to modern CPU and OS-controlled interfaces. It seems primitive until you examine the reasons the manufacturers kept using the old tech. I myself thought it was insane how old tech was still being used, but it was being used for low cost and reduced complexity in mission-critical operations. Consumer tech isn't remotely similar. It becomes troublesome when pro and consumer tech bleed together. The pros are forced to throw away perfectly good equipment to suit the consumer market preference to re-sell the same goods again and again every quarter.
I actually do have an RS232 dongle.... USB -> RS232 which I use if I need to do recovery on a Cisco router I had.... yes there are uses... but the usage is so niche as to make it stupid to include it in any machine these days. Based on the breadth of the dongles he listed, I get the feeling he is just making it up as per lets see how to demonstrate the dongle quagmire....but then if you need one -- you also have a FW800 device you are putting in the bag as well.... which would dwarf the dongle... and for that matter the Apple TV
stimpy said: I've seen it so many times and I have 8 adapters for my current stuff and have to go buy 6 more for USB-C. Losing a floppy is brave, making stuff where your two current products MBP an iPhone dont plug together with the out of the box items is just weird.
Really? 6 more adapters? Name them. I bet there is a USB-C hub that replaces them with 1 unit.
USB-C to TB,Ethernet,DVI,VGA,FW800, oh yeah and USB3. They are all in my bag along with more
FW800 was last used in an Apple computer maybe 6+ years ago (2012 omitted it).... and you still are carrying around a FW800 dongle.... sounds like you just like dongles for the heck of it....
Or he doesn't think it's acceptable to throw away a FireWire 800-based device just because Apple has abandoned FireWire for a format that hasn't gone anywhere (thunderbolt) or a format that has inferior throughput, wastes CPU, and even interferes with wifi (USB2/3).
1) With that logic, anyone antiqued HW should be supported by Apple if a single person uses it.
2) Thunderbolt hasn't gone anywhere? 40 Gibps is no where? Do you not understand what the 800 refers in FW800? Do you not understand that FireWire works over Thunderbolt, not in spite of it? There are many million more devices in-use today that support TB than have ever supported FW.
I know this sort of thing goes against the Apple way, but they really need to go out and talk to people about what they need in a desktop or tower computer. With the old Mac Pros they had a computer that was dominant in video post proudction (with FCP) and in graphic design. Then they started ignoring that segment of their business and we went years with no update. This was under Jobs BTW. Maybe Steve had decided that workhorse computers didn't fit the Apple future, but Steve is gone and I think this is one example of where he was wrong. It's not a big market, but it is one that is pretty steady. It might even be one that could grow if they committed to it with engineering and marketing resources. In the film and video effects world Apple now has practically zero presence because they don't make machines that kare comparable with the powerful HP and Boxx hardware that is used in this industry. Boxx has built it's entire business around making super fast tower computers. I see no reason why Apple couldn't do the same with their superior OS, but again only if they had the willingness to do so. A lot of people would say "take my money" if Apple released a bleeding edge tower computer. A lot.
I have heard a lot about the cheese grater version of the Mac being far superior to the trashcan Mac as far as expandability. I still have my Mac Pro 2008 (8 core) [with upgraded graphics] and I can tell you that it was less expandable than people seem to pretend. You had a PCIe bus but no thunderbolt and USB-2. First thing I did was put in 2x graphics cards.... which left 1 (yes 1 1 only) PCIe slot with lower bandwidth for anything else - in my case I put in a SAS controller (hobbled a bit by the fact that it PCIe bandwidth.... is less than what I could get from Thunderbolt). Yes - I can put hard drives in it but however many they give you there will never be enough internally... and I know the PC market has been all about putting hard drives in the same case but .... that is not a great design either. Hard drives are old mechanical beasts that whirl and vibrate and shake and give off lots of heat.... this is best dealt with in a case that is designed for that thing rather than in the same case as your computer. I have 4 HD slots and 13 HDs..... I could not give a crap about any new machine having slots for hard drives .... it would be a waste. Yes, it would be useful to be able to upgrade the graphics.... but then if there are better options in the future and I had a Mac Pro from a few years ago.... guess what... I can just disconnect the hard drive array, mirror the SSD drives .... then sell it and buy a newer model with newer graphics capabilities (assuming an upgraded Mac Pro exists).... not really much of a hinderance give that Apple hardware retains better resell values than other companies... and there seems to always be someone out there willing to buy it. Really with the way thunderbolt the way it is the only thing that really is useful for upgrading is the memory onboard..... Trashcan is not that bad of a design.... However I would not be surprised if the new Mac Pro gets a new case again this year (maybe revert to a certain extent). I get the feeling that the US manufacturing of the current Mac Pro had some issues, and given they have not "nudged" the specs.... I get the feeling they did not nudge them because there may be some issue with the current design and they felt that nudging it was not the best solution.... and there is a new design in the works. They should have never moved the manufacturing back to the US
The sad thing is the current trash can Mac Pro could have been great but was a flop due to Apple's choice of a custom dual GPU architecture which not surprisingly almost no developers have bothered to optimise for, high pricing, lack of storage and more recently, lack of refreshes, port and ram upgrades etc. im not sure Apple can save the Mac Pro now.
It's like republicans destroying government services by sabotaging them, making them suck enough that people hate them enough to support eliminating/privatizing them.
stimpy said: I've seen it so many times and I have 8 adapters for my current stuff and have to go buy 6 more for USB-C. Losing a floppy is brave, making stuff where your two current products MBP an iPhone dont plug together with the out of the box items is just weird.
Really? 6 more adapters? Name them. I bet there is a USB-C hub that replaces them with 1 unit.
USB-C to TB,Ethernet,DVI,VGA,FW800, oh yeah and USB3. They are all in my bag along with more
FW800 was last used in an Apple computer maybe 6+ years ago (2012 omitted it).... and you still are carrying around a FW800 dongle.... sounds like you just like dongles for the heck of it....
Or he doesn't think it's acceptable to throw away a FireWire 800-based device just because Apple has abandoned FireWire for a format that hasn't gone anywhere (thunderbolt) or a format that has inferior throughput, wastes CPU, and even interferes with wifi (USB2/3).
1) With that logic, anyone antiqued HW should be supported by Apple if a single person uses it.
2) Thunderbolt hasn't gone anywhere? 40 Gibps is no where? Do you not understand what the 800 refers in FW800? Do you not understand that FireWire works over Thunderbolt, not in spite of it? There are many million more devices in-use today that support TB than have ever supported FW.
1. I was making a point about legacy ports still being used by people, and how other people mock them for still using them. I was not making a case for every outdated technology to be supported perpetually. That's your straw man.
2. Of course I know what the 800 means. Do you know what "going anywhere" means? I gave you enough context to figure it out, but instead you aimed to build an argument against my knowledge of transfer rates, when I was talking about the availability of actual thunderbolt hardware.
Then you addressed availability with ludicrous made-up numbers. Your "many million more devices"... are you serious? There have been way more FireWire devices marketed than thunderbolt devices. You seem to be one of those people that never used FireWire and therefore presume it had little presence in the world.
Yes, I know FireWire works over the newest bus. That's irrelevant to the context of my comments. Still: the results of thunderbolt-to-FireWire adapters seem to vary a lot. I've not tried it myself but I've seen people remark that it works fine and I've seen people remark that it's fraught with problems. But again, that's neither here or there in the context of my comments.
You seem to just want to be contrary, rather than consider the arguments I've put forth.
1. I was making a point about legacy ports still being used by people, and how other people mock them for still using them. I was not making a case for every outdated technology to be supported perpetually. That's your straw man.
2. Of course I know what the 800 means. Do you know what "going anywhere" means? I gave you enough context to figure it out, but instead you aimed to build an argument against my knowledge of transfer rates, when I was talking about the availability of actual thunderbolt hardware. Then you addressed availability with ludicrous made-up numbers. Your "many million more devices"... are you serious? There have been way more FireWire devices marketed than thunderbolt devices. You seem to be one of those people that never used FireWire and therefore presume it had little presence in the world.
You seem to just want to be contrary, rather than consider the arguments I've put forth.
1) Your logic, or lack thereof, still applies. Even if we apply it to "legacy ports" there are a plethora of outdated ports we can use. Bottom line, you're nuts if you believe Apple should still be including FW800 on Macs.
2) Stagnant, motionless, stationary. That's what "not going anywhere" means. I gave you plenty of data that shows that TB is moving very fast. If you want an example of a technology that stopping moving forward you can check out FireWire as we never saw FW1600 or FW3200, yet you want to argue that FW is superior and therefore should be included on Macs. Please!
3) I was probably still using FW400 long after you stopped using it: 2014. What I didn't do is make up an argument that FW is better than much new technologies simply because I had a use for it.
4) Yes, TB is on many millions more devices than FW ever was.
As soon as an iPad runs Pro Tools or Ovation and has a big enough screen to show me a reasonable fraction of a session, I'm in. Until then, Windows computers are a MUCH better choice as touch-capable production tools.
Except, there is very little choice when it comes to quality touch-capable software to take advantage of touch-based Windows computers.
Understood. I'm saying that even with software that's NOT optimized for touch, it can be handy when used in addition to the keyboard and mouse. Some things can be accomplished quite easily even in software that wasn't designed with touch in mind.
My iMac has been the best computer I've ever owned...
That being said what I've seen of the Surface Studio (hardware) in real time was very compelling:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/surface/devices/surface-studio/overview
...and dare I suggest even innovative...?
...and we can't buy (or even pre-order) a full sized mac monitor at this point, so my 2016 MBP is not yet in as designed use (literally in a drawer), and I'm still using what is now classed by Apple as 'obsolete' - a 17" mbp testing a non-Apple display - I can't use my iMac as a target display either with 2016 mbp (TB3 spec should support DisplayPort) as larger size screens seem preferable to squinting, at least for me...
I will be curious: http://www.razerzone.com/gaming-systems/razer-blade-pro which offers a 4K 17" IPS display (pro?) with one of the top performing graphics cards available - but until hands on tough to say, fan noise & heat being obvious concerns...
So I truly hope Mr. Cook is correct, and we will be impressed with what comes next, and it will all 'just work', and for me it could not come soon enough...
Umm, thats a gaming GPU, it won't equal AMD in video editing. Its the fastest GPU for gaming, but for anything else? meh.
I'd be happy for better clarity & rationale on all of this, and wish Apple might provide more detail on optimization & choices, as well as greater clarity on hardware interactivity... Little seems simple these days. I'd still like to see a quad core i7 mini with dual drive bays, a 17" rMBP, an iMac with user vs OEM VESA, and any number of ports & 'it just works' options within reason...
The CPUs on the 15 inch RMBP are also meant for the mac mini…
How is it less convenient? The controls and displays are together on the iPad. Ideally in a control surface you don't need to look at the mix screen. All the info is at your fingertips and for the controls the iPad offers it looks to be mostly there. It's not a S6 replacement but it's free.
That looks like a handy alternative and I should probably talk to Engineering about setting up a test. That said, I don't think the existence of an alternative negates the value of having similar capability right on the screen. If the Mac were touch capable, I may not NEED the iPad. Plus I could use the screen to do anything, whereas the iPad app is limited to Pro Tools only.
And seriously, you're bitching about how Apple is inferior without even trying the free app?
Oh, heck no. Sorry if I gave that impression that my view is anti-Apple. I didn't intend that. My point was simply that the touch systems we use now have proven to be handy, so I don't agree with the arguments that implementing touch on the Mac is an inherently bad idea.
The examples I cited were intended as "for example" demonstrations of possible benefits, not as arguments for the absolute necessity of touch to work efficiently. The Pro Tools example was purely hypothetical -- the system at work runs on a Mac Pro and the monitors are hanging on the wall three metres away from the operator -- but I can imagine it being useful in other situations, like on my laptop.
After a little over a year of using touch with Ovation and seeing it in use with Overdrive I've come to appreciate it as a useful addition to a keyboard and mouse. I wouldn't want it to be the ONLY method of interaction, but I like it being ONE of the methods.
Oh, heck no. Sorry if I gave that impression that my view is anti-Apple. I didn't intend that. My point was simply that the touch systems we use now have proven to be handy, so I don't agree with the arguments that implementing touch on the Mac is an inherently bad idea.
The examples I cited were intended as "for example" demonstrations of possible benefits, not as arguments for the absolute necessity of touch to work efficiently. The Pro Tools example was purely hypothetical -- the system at work runs on a Mac Pro and the monitors are hanging on the wall three metres away from the operator -- but I can imagine it being useful in other situations, like on my laptop.
After a little over a year of using touch with Ovation and seeing it in use with Overdrive I've come to appreciate it as a useful addition to a keyboard and mouse. I wouldn't want it to be the ONLY method of interaction, but I like it being ONE of the methods.
Being a multi-touch researcher in the past I agree (we built a big multi touch table for the Navy). However, I think you are much better off with a Studio or a Cintiq and laying out the board at your hands and using it with a UI designed for direct manipulation as opposed to one designed for mouse and keyboard that you poke at.
Vertical touchscreens are mostly useful for large gestures that move items around the screen rather than direct manipulation of objects/controls. The surface isn't new but it does seem nice. Good attention to detail and the dial (even if slippery) indicates they actually listened to the guys at MSR (microsoft research) that have been working multitouch since the 80s.
The acting isn't the greatest but this concept from the 1990s is mostly build able today with the exception of using the screen surface as a camera. That's still a few years away.
[...] I think you are much better off with a Studio or a Cintiq and laying out the board at your hands and using it with a UI designed for direct manipulation as opposed to one designed for mouse and keyboard that you poke at.
No question. A "proper" touch solution like you describe would be "better." I just think that even basic touch capability is "better than nothing."
[...] I think you are much better off with a Studio or a Cintiq and laying out the board at your hands and using it with a UI designed for direct manipulation as opposed to one designed for mouse and keyboard that you poke at.
No question. A "proper" touch solution like you describe would be "better."
You're right, which is why Apple's trackpad is still unmatched, why the trackpad has grown in size, and why it's the best way for interacting with a PC with a vertical display.
Comments
Edit:
Add the screen shot from my iPad:
I think that's a little premature, Mikey. Maybe you meant "addressed"?
It amuses me that many of the same people who complain about the new MBP not having next year's processor will also complain about it having USB-C ports.
The problem with remotely zooming in is that then you have to pan and scroll. It is very easy to lose your place and start editing in the wrong line of code.
That's quite an impressive looking app!
It is interesting that Avid found a way to enhance the interface of their video editing app with the iPad, and Apple has yet to do this for FCPX.
I ordered the 2 adapters so I can connect my iPad Pro directly to the Mac Ethernet port -- looking forward to some good playtime over the holidays!
Maybe the next iPad Pro will have a USB-C/TB 3 port!
I agree about complex text editing.
The Screens app mitigates some of that with its arrow keys... What I think would really help is an iPad Case/KB with a trackpad/cursor. That way, those tasks that are better done on the kb/trackpad could be don just as they are done on a laptop. And the trackpad gestures could be used instead of many touch gestures on the screen.
I'm on an iPhone right now because my iPad has less than 10% charge and my Mac is in the home office and I'm in the living room.
My feeling about the iPad vs the MBP is that if weight is the primary differientation, I'll stick with the Mac except for casual communication and content consumption when it is possibly more convenient to use the iPad.
I'm pretty pissed at M-Audio/Avid for dumping my very expensive audio interfaces just as a matter of corporate convenience. Re-buying $1500 audio interfaces (to replace devices that still work but have no driver support) every time the industry decides to engineer some obsolescence is wasteful and grotesque. We're not talking 5.24" diskettes, parallel port, or RS232 here. If thunderbolt hadn't ended up so ridiculously complicated and expensive (like maybe if it had just been an optical format from end to end as originally developed, instead of requiring a "smart [expensive] cable"), maybe it would've replaced FireWire already... by companies providing new devices that actually utilize the bandwidth of the new i/o format. Instead, we have companies like Access still using USB 1.1, a few companies using thunderbolt as a costly addon to USB-rated devices, a few USB 3 devices, and everyone else still selling USB 2 devices. Hell, we rarely had FireWire itself used properly by manufacturers (almost always breaking daisy chaining by leaving off the second port), but it did tend to work better than the USB versions of things (except for booting on frickin' lame-ass PCs).
This industry is disgustingly wasteful of resources/materials, as well as consumer money and time. I have zero issue with people who want to keep using the hardware for which they paid large sums of money. Just because it's not a problem for you to repeatedly buy the same gadget over and over (because some manufacturer decided to make the interface obsolete) doesn't mean everyone else is okay with that (or even should be okay with it).
In many industries, RS232 is still being used on industrial hardware because it provides valuable low-level utility that has been lost to modern CPU and OS-controlled interfaces. It seems primitive until you examine the reasons the manufacturers kept using the old tech. I myself thought it was insane how old tech was still being used, but it was being used for low cost and reduced complexity in mission-critical operations. Consumer tech isn't remotely similar. It becomes troublesome when pro and consumer tech bleed together. The pros are forced to throw away perfectly good equipment to suit the consumer market preference to re-sell the same goods again and again every quarter.
2) Thunderbolt hasn't gone anywhere? 40 Gibps is no where? Do you not understand what the 800 refers in FW800? Do you not understand that FireWire works over Thunderbolt, not in spite of it? There are many million more devices in-use today that support TB than have ever supported FW.
2. Of course I know what the 800 means. Do you know what "going anywhere" means? I gave you enough context to figure it out, but instead you aimed to build an argument against my knowledge of transfer rates, when I was talking about the availability of actual thunderbolt hardware.
Then you addressed availability with ludicrous made-up numbers. Your "many million more devices"... are you serious? There have been way more FireWire devices marketed than thunderbolt devices. You seem to be one of those people that never used FireWire and therefore presume it had little presence in the world.
Yes, I know FireWire works over the newest bus. That's irrelevant to the context of my comments. Still: the results of thunderbolt-to-FireWire adapters seem to vary a lot. I've not tried it myself but I've seen people remark that it works fine and I've seen people remark that it's fraught with problems. But again, that's neither here or there in the context of my comments.
You seem to just want to be contrary, rather than consider the arguments I've put forth.
2) Stagnant, motionless, stationary. That's what "not going anywhere" means. I gave you plenty of data that shows that TB is moving very fast. If you want an example of a technology that stopping moving forward you can check out FireWire as we never saw FW1600 or FW3200, yet you want to argue that FW is superior and therefore should be included on Macs. Please!
3) I was probably still using FW400 long after you stopped using it: 2014. What I didn't do is make up an argument that FW is better than much new technologies simply because I had a use for it.
4) Yes, TB is on many millions more devices than FW ever was.
Understood. I'm saying that even with software that's NOT optimized for touch, it can be handy when used in addition to the keyboard and mouse. Some things can be accomplished quite easily even in software that wasn't designed with touch in mind.
That looks like a handy alternative and I should probably talk to Engineering about setting up a test. That said, I don't think the existence of an alternative negates the value of having similar capability right on the screen. If the Mac were touch capable, I may not NEED the iPad. Plus I could use the screen to do anything, whereas the iPad app is limited to Pro Tools only.
Oh, heck no. Sorry if I gave that impression that my view is anti-Apple. I didn't intend that. My point was simply that the touch systems we use now have proven to be handy, so I don't agree with the arguments that implementing touch on the Mac is an inherently bad idea.
The examples I cited were intended as "for example" demonstrations of possible benefits, not as arguments for the absolute necessity of touch to work efficiently. The Pro Tools example was purely hypothetical -- the system at work runs on a Mac Pro and the monitors are hanging on the wall three metres away from the operator -- but I can imagine it being useful in other situations, like on my laptop.
After a little over a year of using touch with Ovation and seeing it in use with Overdrive I've come to appreciate it as a useful addition to a keyboard and mouse. I wouldn't want it to be the ONLY method of interaction, but I like it being ONE of the methods.
Vertical touchscreens are mostly useful for large gestures that move items around the screen rather than direct manipulation of objects/controls. The surface isn't new but it does seem nice. Good attention to detail and the dial (even if slippery) indicates they actually listened to the guys at MSR (microsoft research) that have been working multitouch since the 80s.
The acting isn't the greatest but this concept from the 1990s is mostly build able today with the exception of using the screen surface as a camera. That's still a few years away.
http://asktog.com/starfire/starfire.mp4
No question. A "proper" touch solution like you describe would be "better." I just think that even basic touch capability is "better than nothing."