If the new Mac Pro does not have user accessible PCI slots, upgradable RAM and storage, etc., then Apple shouldn't bother with it.
It has already destroyed its goodwill by neglecting the 5,1 and 6,1 models (the 6,1 models also suffering from utter uselessness for those who needed to use internal PCI hardware).
Stop over-thinking and then trying to tell people what they REALLY need and listen to what USERS say they really need.
2 years to come out with a new tower? That's . . . pathetic.
[...] While I'd personally like Apple to use socketed storage on pretty much everything, I understand and accept why they are doing it.
I don't. Would you please explain it to me?
As I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I don't feel the need to upgrade my computers as long as the price of maxing it out at the time of purchase is within reason. Laptop storage is a different story, though.
When I bought this Mac the maximum storage capacity was 2TB, and that came at a rather hefty price. As time goes on, the price of storage modules falls while capacity increases. Within a couple years that same amount of money may buy twice as much storage. Over that same couple of years my existing storage will slowly fill up. In the past I've been able to increase both the capacity and speed of the onboard drive. I'm disappointed that I won't be able to do that with this one (especially considering how much it cost).
[...] While I'd personally like Apple to use socketed storage on pretty much everything, I understand and accept why they are doing it.
I don't. Would you please explain it to me?
As I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I don't feel the need to upgrade my computers as long as the price of maxing it out at the time of purchase is within reason. Laptop storage is a different story, though.
When I bought this Mac the maximum storage capacity was 2TB, and that came at a rather hefty price. As time goes on, the price of storage modules falls while capacity increases. Within a couple years that same amount of money may buy twice as much storage. Over that same couple of years my existing storage will slowly fill up. In the past I've been able to increase both the capacity and speed of the onboard drive. I'm disappointed that I won't be able to do that with this one (especially considering how much it cost).
Could you first explain to me why my iPhone should have a socketed NAND and controller?
Hey Mike, I totally disagree with your analysis of the number of people upgrading RAM. I know for a fact that number is much much higher.
Apple charges 3x the price for RAM upgrades. Your numbers make sense when you look at the data Apple has - which shows people are smart enough to not order ram from Apple. I think a better way to determine the true number is to ask a company like OWC how business is? Determine their market share, extrapolate sales / new machines sold etc...
I've upgraded the RAM on my own for every Mac I've ever owned (40-50 computers). On top of that, I've upgraded all of my friends Mac's with ram (100+ computers). On top of that, I upgrade all of my clients computers with RAM or direct them to OWC (300+ computers).
Thats about 450 computers with upgraded RAM that Apple, or anyone else, has zero data on... and I'm just 1 guy. I have many peers who do the same for their friends and clients. I could easily estimate over 3000+ computers.
I would argue the type of people answering your poll here are 'unlikely' to be upgraders. If you ran the same poll on Barefeats - it would probably be close to 100% upgrade their RAM on their own.
How much data do you think 22 service techs spanning 18 states and 15 years has? Way, way more than this. Regarding the polling of Apple store visitors from a few years back, that is as average Apple customer as you can literally get.
Your data isn't wrong, but like the Barefeats readers you speak of, it is skewed the wrong way from a polled population standpoint. It's like asking AppleInsider readers how many have done upgrades.
And, regarding Apple's data. They know exactly who upgrades and who doesn't. What do you think gets included in those crash reports?
Hi Mike,
Maybe you needed to look a bit further in the polling! One of the companies I service had six techs in their IT dept. around the globe that did nothing but hardware repairs and yes UPGRADES! Every system well over 1000 systems had HD upgrades, SSD upgrades and very often RAM upgrades.
This is an engineering firm that needed more than the highest model Apple offered storage & RAM. They stayed with the older Unibody systems as they could be serviced easily (very few retina models).
Sadly, Over a year ago they made the decision to move to HP systems as they had waited and waited hoping for a more serviceable MacBook Pro model. What broke the camels back was the loss of the USB-A ports and the loss of removable storage.
Because of what they do they needed onboard USB-A ports for security keys and no, dongles or external port unit wouldn't meet the requirement as they could be altered (man in the middle attack). In addition the inability to memorialize the storage as well as the risk of the information to still be present on disposed of systems with soldered in storage killed going forward with Apple.
This is not Apple's fault and not a reason to maintain the outdated USB-A, either. The producers of these USB/SIM based digital keys should provide more modern USB versions. The plug should match the device, not the opposite. "Here I have a key, make me a car for this key..."
The biggest name in audio software uses an external device (the iLok) to authenticate the license. The total number of users for the product doesn't seem like it could be very big -- maybe a few million -- and since only new users buy them they only sell a fraction of that number each year. Of those, only a small fraction will have USB-C equipped computers. It probably doesn't make economic sense to produce a version just for that tiny market.
RSA keys need direct connection to the system and we can't dance between USB-A and USB-C device keys.
Macbook Air still includes USB-A. If you absolutely need USB-A then go with Macbook Air, you don’t need Touch Bar MBP at all.
I actually upgraded RAM after I bought the standard iMac to save money. I've done the same with all my PC's as well.
While it's true most of those machines don't get upgraded, it does not mean nobody does that. The upgrades are more common among those who own pros at home than those who use them at work.
Do you really think that companies will let users upgrade their company machines? No. That's not how it works. Companies OWN those machines, not users. Users have little say.
At no point did I say that nobody does it. In fact, the middle of the article spells out who does, and how rare it is. It's just important to note, that while probably 90% of AI readers do it, we are far and away the minority in that regard.
Regarding work, the fact that the user won't upgrade it isn't the point. The corporate entity doesn't, and won't, as it's neither cost nor labor effective to do so.
I don't believe your anecdotal observation has enough data points to come to any conclusions. There were plenty of companies in the business of providing storage and memory upgrades and battery replacements for Macs when they were upgradable and they wouldn't have survived during that era if people weren't making use of them. My own experience is also obviously anecdotal, but my G3 or G4 tower (I forget which it was) got an optical drive upgrade (the original was read-only), several memory upgrades and several storage upgrades. My late-2008 MBP got an optical drive replacement, memory upgrades and storage upgrades. My late 2016 MBP would have gotten storage upgrades if that were possible, but unfortunately it's not.
Now someone who maxes out their configuration from the start might not need to ever upgrade. But anyone else probably eventually does and users don't replace high-end expensive machines often.
And let's get real: Apple doesn't enable upgrades in most of their current machines for two reasons: the first is their obsession with thinness over practicality. And the second is their unstated (and in my opinion unethical and certainly anti-environmental) strategy to force users to buy another machine instead of upgrading.
IMO, if the MacPro isn't modular and fully upgradable, they might as well not bother because they'll just alienate the high-end community more than if they released nothing. If they did so, this would again be Apple's arrogance getting in the way of what those high-end users want. And even if those users never upgrade the machine, it doesn't matter. Perceptions count and they won't be able to sell those machines to the pro community unless they're upgradable. That's why software and hardware contain plenty of features that the majority may never use. For a pro machine, Apple needs to worry a bit less about form factor and external I.D. (since the machine is just as likely to sit on a floor or in a cabinet, as on top of a desk) and worry more about once again making a practical machine, like the towers used to be.
Over 200,000 data points over a decade and a half ending before the RMBP isn’t anecdotal.
I appreciate where here you’re coming from. It’s no secret that I have a stupidly upgraded 5,1.
I’d like the contents of an iMac pro, just in a box, so I could add the monitor I prefer for software development (a wide flat one).
I’m glad Apple have shared their plans as I now know my only immediate option will be a hackintosh, so I can go ahead and build one of those. Not an ideal solution but looks like the only option that permits display selection.
Buy a cylinder Mac Pro.
That's good advice.
I've thought about getting one to replace my mini, but I'm not clear how it will compare for my primary task: transcoding video. Does the cylinder's Xeon handle hardware acceleration the same way as an i7? How about h.265 (HEVC) support? I've seen a few articles about GPU rendering but they're all over my head. Can anyone here offer any insight into how the mini compares to the Pro for squishing? I'm okay with dropping a few grand, but only if the improvement in performance is proportionate to the cost.
I read somewhere (competent) that hardware encoders do not provide good quality video, software encoders are better.
If your primary task is transcoding video then your tool is Apple's Compressor on a cylinder Mac Pro. Certainly it will gladly exploit the dual GPUs of Mac Pro. Compressor primarily relies on the discrete GPU. The only other serious tool is Handbrake but for H.265 you need to check its nightly builds for hvc1 support, the stable release produces "hev1" not supported by Apple devices.
[...] While I'd personally like Apple to use socketed storage on pretty much everything, I understand and accept why they are doing it.
I don't. Would you please explain it to me?
As I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I don't feel the need to upgrade my computers as long as the price of maxing it out at the time of purchase is within reason. Laptop storage is a different story, though.
When I bought this Mac the maximum storage capacity was 2TB, and that came at a rather hefty price. As time goes on, the price of storage modules falls while capacity increases. Within a couple years that same amount of money may buy twice as much storage. Over that same couple of years my existing storage will slowly fill up. In the past I've been able to increase both the capacity and speed of the onboard drive. I'm disappointed that I won't be able to do that with this one (especially considering how much it cost).
Could you first explain to me why my iPhone should have a socketed NAND and controller?
Are you saying I should view my computer as a commodity appliance like an iPhone?
I have trouble with that, for three reasons:
1. History, Computers have traditionally been something we can alter. While there's no reason they have to continue to be, neither does there seem to be any obvious reason they shouldn't.
2. Practicality. An entire industry exists solely to supply parts for computers. The infrastructure already exists. The form factor of a computer allows for user access that may not be practical with an iDevice. There is no clear imperative being satisfied by closing off that access.
3. Cost. I already find it difficult to accept that my handheld computer that cost over a thousand bucks is essentially dumpster fill after only three years. Scale that up to $5000 and it's a much bigger pill to swallow. We accept appliances becoming disposable when they become inexpensive enough that tossing them is more cost effective than repairing them -- like a $50 DVD player. Apple's computers have become more expensive since the change, not less.
Again, I'm not talking about making every computer universally upgradeable. By the time a new CPU is warranted, it's likely the rest of the components are sufficiently dated that replacing the machine makes more sense. Storage is different though. Sufficient gains are possible in a short enough time frame to make upgrading it a more practical and cost-effective step than replacing the entire device.
I don't think it's unreasonable to make a distinction between iDevices and "traditional" computers. They're similar, with many common uses, but they're not equivalents. I think it's reasonable to lock down comparatively inexpensive devices, particularly ones where space is at a premium, while still allowing a limited amount of upgradeability to more elaborate and expensive equipment, particularly when there's no obvious benefit to prohibiting it.
I’d like the contents of an iMac pro, just in a box, so I could add the monitor I prefer for software development (a wide flat one).
I’m glad Apple have shared their plans as I now know my only immediate option will be a hackintosh, so I can go ahead and build one of those. Not an ideal solution but looks like the only option that permits display selection.
Buy a cylinder Mac Pro.
That's good advice.
I've thought about getting one to replace my mini, but I'm not clear how it will compare for my primary task: transcoding video. Does the cylinder's Xeon handle hardware acceleration the same way as an i7? How about h.265 (HEVC) support? I've seen a few articles about GPU rendering but they're all over my head. Can anyone here offer any insight into how the mini compares to the Pro for squishing? I'm okay with dropping a few grand, but only if the improvement in performance is proportionate to the cost.
I read somewhere (competent) that hardware encoders do not provide good quality video, software encoders are better.
If your primary task is transcoding video then your tool is Apple's Compressor on a cylinder Mac Pro. Certainly it will gladly exploit the dual GPUs of Mac Pro. Compressor primarily relies on the discrete GPU. The only other serious tool is Handbrake but for H.265 you need to check its nightly builds for hvc1 support, the stable release produces "hev1" not supported by Apple devices.
Thank you for the input!
I have Compressor and mostly like it, but it's just not as flexible as Handbrake, surprising as that seems. Handbrake allows much more granular control over the conversion parameters. I spent weeks experimenting until I came up with a combination of settings that yield the best balance of file size and content quality. I'll have to do some experiments with Compressor to see how it compares.
The motivation behind this is speed. The Handbrake settings that produce the results I want take a long time to chew. I figured a mini would be fine because as long as it isn't doing anything else, who cares how long it takes to knock off a project list? I just start it, forget about it, and a few days later I have ten or twelve hours of finished product. The only problem is that I'm impatient. The concept is perfectly valid, I just don't LIKE it!
So the question is how much improvement dropping ~$3000 on a cylinder will provide. Unless it's dramatic, it's probably not a good enough use of limited funds when there's no reason it has to be faster other than "because I don't like waiting." I guess the way to find out is to buy one and try it.
You are a PC hobbyist. The middle class wants the iMac, laptops, and iPads which they don’t upgrade. You would be happier with a Dell.
You are perhaps one of the greatest mind readers I’ve ever seen this forum. A diehard Mac lover like me since 1984 who has refused to buy a single Windows PC during all of those years somehow is a “PC hobbyist who would be happier with Dell”!
I’m obviously being deliberately sarcastic here. But the point is that if you’re so wrong about me, and your certainly are, you are definitely just as wrong about what you think regarding “the middle class buyer who wants a pro level Mac.“
Middle-class buyers of Macs, in terms of sheer numbers of people, are often happy with an iMac. But this thread is discussing the Mac Pro. And yes there are all categories of people who would want to Mac Pro for the purpose of being able to expand it overtime and thereby getting more life from that Mac, which they know they cannot do with an iMac.
We cannot talk in terms of “the majority of people,“ for like I said in my previous post, “the majority of people“ use silly Windows PCs! And to extend that logical thinking further, no one can defend Apple’s decision to target only the wealthy with a new Mac Pro costing $10,000 or more, seeing Apple would be limiting their own marketshare for such a machine by pricing it so high. That goes against the iOS device marketing philosophy of pricing it low enough that “most people“ can afford it. And even though I will admit that a Mac is not an iOS device, the point is that Apple is in business to make money and you make money by selling more devices. You know you’re not going to sell more devices if you price them too high.
Saying this another way, to come out with a Mac Pro that is utterly unaffordable to most people in the middle class who otherwise would want to buy an expandable Mac (not a silly Dell running Windoze) is to aim for one thing and one thing only: to profit off the super rich, and from professionals who have contract jobs and can make their money back from that Mac purchase after a single contract, and from rich YouTubers who review these Macs all the time and make millions of dollars a year from YouTube or Patreon. But at the end of the day, the number of these “rich” people who could afford such a Mac Pro are teensy tiny compared to the number of middle-class Mac buyers who would buy such an expandable Mac if the price point of such a Mac was substantially lower like the PowerMacs of old.
Why would a large number of Mac only computer buyers want an expandable Mac? Because if the price is low enough, it’s more frugal to buy that Mac because you can expand it overtime and get more life out of the Mac and keep the computer in tiptop shape performance wise through those years. That’s really what the Power Mac was all about. That’s why my own father purchased a power Mac G5 back in the day.
I honestly don’t know why some of you throw rocks at us Mac-only buyers who want and affordably priced Mac Pro. I just don’t understand it. Again, Apple really isn’t going to make a lot of money off of the Mac Pro anyway in terms of global numbers because Macs are not a significant share of the global PC market. And if they price a Mac Pro into the stratosphere, the share of the market they’re going to get for such a luxury item is even smaller. So it only makes logical sense that Apple come out with an expandable Mac for the masses, not only to sell more Macs but also to spread goodwill to the Mac faithful. There’s nothing wrong with bringing back the glory days of the Power Mac. Nothing wrong with it at all! This isn’t me simply being nostalgic. It is common sense.
I’d like the contents of an iMac pro, just in a box, so I could add the monitor I prefer for software development (a wide flat one).
I’m glad Apple have shared their plans as I now know my only immediate option will be a hackintosh, so I can go ahead and build one of those. Not an ideal solution but looks like the only option that permits display selection.
Buy a cylinder Mac Pro.
That's good advice.
I've thought about getting one to replace my mini, but I'm not clear how it will compare for my primary task: transcoding video. Does the cylinder's Xeon handle hardware acceleration the same way as an i7? How about h.265 (HEVC) support? I've seen a few articles about GPU rendering but they're all over my head. Can anyone here offer any insight into how the mini compares to the Pro for squishing? I'm okay with dropping a few grand, but only if the improvement in performance is proportionate to the cost.
I read somewhere (competent) that hardware encoders do not provide good quality video, software encoders are better.
If your primary task is transcoding video then your tool is Apple's Compressor on a cylinder Mac Pro. Certainly it will gladly exploit the dual GPUs of Mac Pro. Compressor primarily relies on the discrete GPU. The only other serious tool is Handbrake but for H.265 you need to check its nightly builds for hvc1 support, the stable release produces "hev1" not supported by Apple devices.
Thank you for the input!
I have Compressor and mostly like it, but it's just not as flexible as Handbrake, surprising as that seems. Handbrake allows much more granular control over the conversion parameters. I spent weeks experimenting until I came up with a combination of settings that yield the best balance of file size and content quality. I'll have to do some experiments with Compressor to see how it compares.
The motivation behind this is speed. The Handbrake settings that produce the results I want take a long time to chew. I figured a mini would be fine because as long as it isn't doing anything else, who cares how long it takes to knock off a project list? I just start it, forget about it, and a few days later I have ten or twelve hours of finished product. The only problem is that I'm impatient. The concept is perfectly valid, I just don't LIKE it!
So the question is how much improvement dropping ~$3000 on a cylinder will provide. Unless it's dramatic, it's probably not a good enough use of limited funds when there's no reason it has to be faster other than "because I don't like waiting." I guess the way to find out is to buy one and try it.
I couldn't find any clue about enabling the discrete GPU on Handbrake Mac. Maybe it is available in the CLI version but I'm not using that. So Handbrake on a Mac Pro, not using the dual GPUs, might require testing before purchase.
Those conversion parameters may be illusory or at least may not be useful for all kinds of videos. After creating a lot of presets, I ended up by using the built-in presets with minimal modifications. Mastering that "granular control" requires a very patient and committed person, I'm not. Anyway, if you want to use both Compressor and Handbrake, iMac 4K or 5K may be a cheaper solution.
Hi. Freelance Apple support tech/salesman/consultant/independent advisor for the last 25 years. I know from vast experience that only a tiny minority of ‘professional’ or ‘amateur’ (not a derogatory term) user/owners will follow a reasonable/expected and profitable upgrade path. It just never quite happens. Endless talk... but closing the sale? Hardly ever. What happens is user/owners or owners will flog a machine until they can’t take it any more. The reasoning is ‘I have to get my monies worth’ but always from the initial purchase price. Never purchase plus upgrades across the years. My examples of how workers in an office can save, say, 150 hours a year or do ‘more’ - or both - always fall on deaf ears. In the end these 6 to 8 year old machines need 4 times the Ram and an SSD to really compensate for a bigger OS, giant applications and their memory requirements. Now here comes the science bit: even when I’ve flat out lied and pretended to offer the Ram and SSD for free, most user/owners in the end, decline. What happens in reality is that people have been lusting, fantasizing, dreaming of the latest or ‘ultimate’ Mac of their dreams, often for years. They will say they need more space, more speed, more memory, but the consumer in us takes over from the user and awards themselves a brand new Mac. Which crucially can be written off in various legal and not so legal ways at the end of a tax year. Add to that, most are in love with the brand and are loyal followers. So instead of spending around $,€,£400 in upgrades over several years, they sell the computer for way less than they paid and blow easily 3000 buying a new one. And Apple know this, and of course the marketing is geared towards encouraging poorly remunerated trade-ins which are called ‘upgrades’. In the end, only a few really money savvy and tech savvy users go the upgrade path. The rest, not unreasonably, feel they’ve earnt a new Mac, as well as financially written it off the old one. So they go for a shiny brand new machine often with all the extras to match such as USB 3, thunderbolt, HDMI gizmos that replace older, smaller, slower peripherals. Seen from this perspective (of human behavior) it’s not difficult for Apple to ditch upgradeability, sideline a minority of advanced users (to give them their correct name) and force them to upgrade at the time of purchase. Oh, and if you think this is going to bring Apple to its knees, check the share price going back 25 years.
Now here comes the science bit: even when I’ve flat out lied and pretended...
In the end, only a few...
The admission of lying does not inspire confidence in the words which follow.
As I’ve said before, mentioning “numbers“ and “the majority“ or “the minority” doesn’t mean much in the greater scheme of things where Mac users in general are a significant minority in terms of global computer usage worldwide. And whether the consumer is inclined upgrade or not is largely irrelevant to the point I made previously about fact that when you price a computer too high, you will artificially limit the number of people who can afford to buy it in the first place. And no matter what kind of Mac Pro Apple comes out with, Apple will still reap far more profit from the iPhone. So it would be wrong to say that Apple would be foolish to come out with an affordably priced Mac Pro.
Apple should just do the right thing for the sake of positive PR among the Mac faithful and come out with a Mac Pro that is affordably priced in terms of what the middle-class American buyer could afford if they save their pennies. And no, saving their pennies doesn’t mean the starting price of $10,000 either.
You are a PC hobbyist. The middle class wants the iMac, laptops, and iPads which they don’t upgrade. You would be happier with a Dell.
You are perhaps one of the greatest mind readers I’ve ever seen this forum. A diehard Mac lover like me since 1984 who has refused to buy a single Windows PC during all of those years somehow is a “PC hobbyist who would be happier with Dell”!
I’m obviously being deliberately sarcastic here. But the point is that if you’re so wrong about me, and your certainly are, you are definitely just as wrong about what you think regarding “the middle class buyer who wants a pro level Mac.“
Middle-class buyers of Macs, in terms of sheer numbers of people, are often happy with an iMac. But this thread is discussing the Mac Pro. And yes there are all categories of people who would want to Mac Pro for the purpose of being able to expand it overtime and thereby getting more life from that Mac, which they know they cannot do with an iMac.
We cannot talk in terms of “the majority of people,“ for like I said in my previous post, “the majority of people“ use silly Windows PCs! And to extend that logical thinking further, no one can defend Apple’s decision to target only the wealthy with a new Mac Pro costing $10,000 or more, seeing Apple would be limiting their own marketshare for such a machine by pricing it so high. That goes against the iOS device marketing philosophy of pricing it low enough that “most people“ can afford it. And even though I will admit that a Mac is not an iOS device, the point is that Apple is in business to make money and you make money by selling more devices. You know you’re not going to sell more devices if you price them too high.
Saying this another way, to come out with a Mac Pro that is utterly unaffordable to most people in the middle class who otherwise would want to buy an expandable Mac (not a silly Dell running Windoze) is to aim for one thing and one thing only: to profit off the super rich, and from professionals who have contract jobs and can make their money back from that Mac purchase after a single contract, and from rich YouTubers who review these Macs all the time and make millions of dollars a year from YouTube or Patreon. But at the end of the day, the number of these “rich” people who could afford such a Mac Pro are teensy tiny compared to the number of middle-class Mac buyers who would buy such an expandable Mac if the price point of such a Mac was substantially lower like the PowerMacs of old.
Why would a large number of Mac only computer buyers want an expandable Mac? Because if the price is low enough, it’s more frugal to buy that Mac because you can expand it overtime and get more life out of the Mac and keep the computer in tiptop shape performance wise through those years. That’s really what the Power Mac was all about. That’s why my own father purchased a power Mac G5 back in the day.
I honestly don’t know why some of you throw rocks at us Mac-only buyers who want and affordably priced Mac Pro. I just don’t understand it. Again, Apple really isn’t going to make a lot of money off of the Mac Pro anyway in terms of global numbers because Macs are not a significant share of the global PC market. And if they price a Mac Pro into the stratosphere, the share of the market they’re going to get for such a luxury item is even smaller. So it only makes logical sense that Apple come out with an expandable Mac for the masses, not only to sell more Macs but also to spread goodwill to the Mac faithful. There’s nothing wrong with bringing back the glory days of the Power Mac. Nothing wrong with it at all! This isn’t me simply being nostalgic. It is common sense.
I understand where you are coming from. I just don't think that it will happen in Tim Cook's Apple. He's an MBA, not a artist creator , software developer, or engineer. I don't think he will green light a modular expandable machine less expensive than the IMacPro that they know people buy at the entry price and then go out and update themselves to max out.
I think it would be great is this new group was developing a couple machines in addition to the iMP. That would let Apple produce an upgrade able pro mid ranger plus another machine as powerful as that made by HP, Dell, Sun (I'm not even sure if they are around) - modern big iron that would probably start at $10,000.
You are a PC hobbyist. The middle class wants the iMac, laptops, and iPads which they don’t upgrade. You would be happier with a Dell.
You are perhaps one of the greatest mind readers I’ve ever seen this forum. A diehard Mac lover like me since 1984 who has refused to buy a single Windows PC during all of those years somehow is a “PC hobbyist who would be happier with Dell”!
I’m obviously being deliberately sarcastic here. But the point is that if you’re so wrong about me, and your certainly are, you are definitely just as wrong about what you think regarding “the middle class buyer who wants a pro level Mac.“
Middle-class buyers of Macs, in terms of sheer numbers of people, are often happy with an iMac. But this thread is discussing the Mac Pro. And yes there are all categories of people who would want to Mac Pro for the purpose of being able to expand it overtime and thereby getting more life from that Mac, which they know they cannot do with an iMac.
We cannot talk in terms of “the majority of people,“ for like I said in my previous post, “the majority of people“ use silly Windows PCs! And to extend that logical thinking further, no one can defend Apple’s decision to target only the wealthy with a new Mac Pro costing $10,000 or more, seeing Apple would be limiting their own marketshare for such a machine by pricing it so high. That goes against the iOS device marketing philosophy of pricing it low enough that “most people“ can afford it. And even though I will admit that a Mac is not an iOS device, the point is that Apple is in business to make money and you make money by selling more devices. You know you’re not going to sell more devices if you price them too high.
Saying this another way, to come out with a Mac Pro that is utterly unaffordable to most people in the middle class who otherwise would want to buy an expandable Mac (not a silly Dell running Windoze) is to aim for one thing and one thing only: to profit off the super rich, and from professionals who have contract jobs and can make their money back from that Mac purchase after a single contract, and from rich YouTubers who review these Macs all the time and make millions of dollars a year from YouTube or Patreon. But at the end of the day, the number of these “rich” people who could afford such a Mac Pro are teensy tiny compared to the number of middle-class Mac buyers who would buy such an expandable Mac if the price point of such a Mac was substantially lower like the PowerMacs of old.
Why would a large number of Mac only computer buyers want an expandable Mac? Because if the price is low enough, it’s more frugal to buy that Mac because you can expand it overtime and get more life out of the Mac and keep the computer in tiptop shape performance wise through those years. That’s really what the Power Mac was all about. That’s why my own father purchased a power Mac G5 back in the day.
I honestly don’t know why some of you throw rocks at us Mac-only buyers who want and affordably priced Mac Pro. I just don’t understand it. Again, Apple really isn’t going to make a lot of money off of the Mac Pro anyway in terms of global numbers because Macs are not a significant share of the global PC market. And if they price a Mac Pro into the stratosphere, the share of the market they’re going to get for such a luxury item is even smaller. So it only makes logical sense that Apple come out with an expandable Mac for the masses, not only to sell more Macs but also to spread goodwill to the Mac faithful. There’s nothing wrong with bringing back the glory days of the Power Mac. Nothing wrong with it at all! This isn’t me simply being nostalgic. It is common sense.
The dream of "expandable Mac for the masses" may not be so close to reality in the current state of computing technology. Actually Apple upgrades the Macs: but they do that themselves, on your behalf prior to purchase. And that, not to suck more dollars from you, but to provide the best possible upgrade. "Knowledge" acquired by reading Amazon listings is not enough to upgrade a state-of-the-art computer whether it is from Apple, HP, Dell or whatever, there are a lot of undocumented specs available only to OEMs and not even to them and discovered after extensive testing. Apple pays attention to upgradability whenever that makes sense. The 2016 13" Macbook Pro w/o TBar, the most affordable rMBP, came with a removable SSD for example. The RAM is soldered not because of Apple's obsession with thinness but because LPDDR3 requires such a socket. The RAM is not removable desktop RAM because putting a desktop RAM into a Macbook would severely disrupt the delicate thermal balance reached after extensive testing and engineering, and would require also the development of a totally different memory controller, adding at least to the cost. If Intel's LPDDR4 support was pushed to the end of 2018 this is a bottleneck of the whole industry, not only Intel's nor Apple's. The technology has significantly changed since the cheese grater Mac Pro. Just plug your brand new graphics card, close the lid and go, not so simple anymore. The actual graphics cards draw considerable power and you have to change the power supply as well, and to do that, you must carefully recalculate the total consumed power taking as input the power consumption of all components, RAM, SSD, CPU, GPU, Thunderbolt... Is that the "expandable Mac for the masses"?
You are a PC hobbyist. The middle class wants the iMac, laptops, and iPads which they don’t upgrade. You would be happier with a Dell.
You are perhaps one of the greatest mind readers I’ve ever seen this forum. A diehard Mac lover like me since 1984 who has refused to buy a single Windows PC during all of those years somehow is a “PC hobbyist who would be happier with Dell”!
I’m obviously being deliberately sarcastic here. But the point is that if you’re so wrong about me, and your certainly are, you are definitely just as wrong about what you think regarding “the middle class buyer who wants a pro level Mac.“
Middle-class buyers of Macs, in terms of sheer numbers of people, are often happy with an iMac. But this thread is discussing the Mac Pro. And yes there are all categories of people who would want to Mac Pro for the purpose of being able to expand it overtime and thereby getting more life from that Mac, which they know they cannot do with an iMac.
We cannot talk in terms of “the majority of people,“ for like I said in my previous post, “the majority of people“ use silly Windows PCs! And to extend that logical thinking further, no one can defend Apple’s decision to target only the wealthy with a new Mac Pro costing $10,000 or more, seeing Apple would be limiting their own marketshare for such a machine by pricing it so high. That goes against the iOS device marketing philosophy of pricing it low enough that “most people“ can afford it. And even though I will admit that a Mac is not an iOS device, the point is that Apple is in business to make money and you make money by selling more devices. You know you’re not going to sell more devices if you price them too high.
Saying this another way, to come out with a Mac Pro that is utterly unaffordable to most people in the middle class who otherwise would want to buy an expandable Mac (not a silly Dell running Windoze) is to aim for one thing and one thing only: to profit off the super rich, and from professionals who have contract jobs and can make their money back from that Mac purchase after a single contract, and from rich YouTubers who review these Macs all the time and make millions of dollars a year from YouTube or Patreon. But at the end of the day, the number of these “rich” people who could afford such a Mac Pro are teensy tiny compared to the number of middle-class Mac buyers who would buy such an expandable Mac if the price point of such a Mac was substantially lower like the PowerMacs of old.
Why would a large number of Mac only computer buyers want an expandable Mac? Because if the price is low enough, it’s more frugal to buy that Mac because you can expand it overtime and get more life out of the Mac and keep the computer in tiptop shape performance wise through those years. That’s really what the Power Mac was all about. That’s why my own father purchased a power Mac G5 back in the day.
I honestly don’t know why some of you throw rocks at us Mac-only buyers who want and affordably priced Mac Pro. I just don’t understand it. Again, Apple really isn’t going to make a lot of money off of the Mac Pro anyway in terms of global numbers because Macs are not a significant share of the global PC market. And if they price a Mac Pro into the stratosphere, the share of the market they’re going to get for such a luxury item is even smaller. So it only makes logical sense that Apple come out with an expandable Mac for the masses, not only to sell more Macs but also to spread goodwill to the Mac faithful. There’s nothing wrong with bringing back the glory days of the Power Mac. Nothing wrong with it at all! This isn’t me simply being nostalgic. It is common sense.
I understand where you are coming from. I just don't think that it will happen in Tim Cook's Apple. He's an MBA, not a artist creator , software developer, or engineer.
“The admission of lying does not inspire confidence in the words which follow.“
Someone just proved they don’t get how the market reacts to a free upgrade. The fact it was an experiment to reveal the price point of an upgrade (no price point whatsoever) shows a complete lack of understanding from Apple’s point of view. Translation: Apple doesn’t give a F... about you guys because you’re a tiny minority’s. I don’t give a F... about you guys because I can’t make a profit. The bottom line is just that. Money. I’m genuinely sorry it’s that way. I’d kill for new cheese grater tower in 2018 but the numbers don’t add up. Not even in PR terms, sales, goodwill, market leader-building. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. If they removed the floppy, the optical drive, the Ethernet port, they sure as hell are going to ditch G4 Cubes, Apple LC TV thingies, and cheese graters.
[...] While I'd personally like Apple to use socketed storage on pretty much everything, I understand and accept why they are doing it.
I don't. Would you please explain it to me?
As I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I don't feel the need to upgrade my computers as long as the price of maxing it out at the time of purchase is within reason. Laptop storage is a different story, though.
When I bought this Mac the maximum storage capacity was 2TB, and that came at a rather hefty price. As time goes on, the price of storage modules falls while capacity increases. Within a couple years that same amount of money may buy twice as much storage. Over that same couple of years my existing storage will slowly fill up. In the past I've been able to increase both the capacity and speed of the onboard drive. I'm disappointed that I won't be able to do that with this one (especially considering how much it cost).
Could you first explain to me why my iPhone should have a socketed NAND and controller?
Are you saying I should view my computer as a commodity appliance like an iPhone?
I have trouble with that, for three reasons:
1. History, Computers have traditionally been something we can alter. While there's no reason they have to continue to be, neither does there seem to be any obvious reason they shouldn't.
2. Practicality. An entire industry exists solely to supply parts for computers. The infrastructure already exists. The form factor of a computer allows for user access that may not be practical with an iDevice. There is no clear imperative being satisfied by closing off that access.
3. Cost. I already find it difficult to accept that my handheld computer that cost over a thousand bucks is essentially dumpster fill after only three years. Scale that up to $5000 and it's a much bigger pill to swallow. We accept appliances becoming disposable when they become inexpensive enough that tossing them is more cost effective than repairing them -- like a $50 DVD player. Apple's computers have become more expensive since the change, not less.
Again, I'm not talking about making every computer universally upgradeable. By the time a new CPU is warranted, it's likely the rest of the components are sufficiently dated that replacing the machine makes more sense. Storage is different though. Sufficient gains are possible in a short enough time frame to make upgrading it a more practical and cost-effective step than replacing the entire device.
I don't think it's unreasonable to make a distinction between iDevices and "traditional" computers. They're similar, with many common uses, but they're not equivalents. I think it's reasonable to lock down comparatively inexpensive devices, particularly ones where space is at a premium, while still allowing a limited amount of upgradeability to more elaborate and expensive equipment, particularly when there's no obvious benefit to prohibiting it.
I'm saying that if one is truly concerned about the security of personal data being stored on a device and not wanting to destroy a device to keep that device private then it shouldn't matter whether it's a 12" MacBook or a 13" iPad Pro. You call on e computer and the other an appliance, but they're both appliances and computers.
The bottom line is just that. Money. I’m genuinely sorry it’s that way. I’d kill for new cheese grater tower in 2018 but the numbers don’t add up.
The numbers indeed “don’t add up,” because relative to iPhone profits, Mac profits are not significant, and luxury-priced Mac Pro profits are even more insignificant, such that it is illogical Apple should even waste their time making a new Pro Mac, YET THEY ARE! Hence, if a company like Apple defies logic and numbers as they clearly are with that ultra niche product called the “Mac Pro,” they might as well “Milk the Mac for all its worth” and make an expandable machine for the masses, even if some argue that user installable parts aren’t the best upgrades in today’s world.
Apple should give us something akin to a Toyota 86 sports car, with an affordable base price of around $1999, then offer Apple branded add-ons. Built well, a maxed out Mac Pro could cost upwards of $25,000 and be the fastest desktop on Earth. But again, the key point is to keep the Mac Pro entry price low so ANYONE could buy into it. That’s all I am saying.
Macs are not iOS devices and therefore we should not expect “zero upgradability” from them. Even though Apple has bastardized the word “Pro” to mean “no upgradability,” that doesn’t mean they cannot suddenly start to THINK DIFFERENT and do the right think by bringing Mac Pro goodness to the MAC faithful.
Shouldn’t the Mac Pro be the most boring product in Apple’s lineup? Why do they need to spend all this time rethinking the pro desktop?
I mean, I know what you’re getting at, and I think it’s a valid argument. There’s something to be said for just going with what works. But it’s Apple we’re talking about. This is a corporate culture that’s just not satisfied unless they’re pushing the boundaries somehow. A translucent all in one. Branching out into the music player business. A clear cube where the discs pop out the top. A half sphere with a floating monitor. A music player with no buttons. Carving a laptop body out of a solid brick of aluminum.
The cheese grater is cemented as one as one of the greatest pieces of industrial design in history. I love my ‘09 to death. I also greatly appreciate the trash can and may wind up getting one as a stopgap. Apple tried something different with it and it didn’t really catch like they hoped. Just like the cube and buttonless shuffle. No doubt they learned a great deal on that project and their failures will make the next machine that much stronger. But they’re not going to retreat into mediocrity. And if all you want them to do is build an updated cheese grater... well I have a feeling you are going to be very disappointed.
The bottom line is just that. Money. I’m genuinely sorry it’s that way. I’d kill for new cheese grater tower in 2018 but the numbers don’t add up.
The numbers indeed “don’t add up,” because relative to iPhone profits, Mac profits are not significant, and luxury-priced Mac Pro profits are even more insignificant, such that it is illogical Apple should even waste their time making a new Pro Mac, YET THEY ARE! Hence, if a company like Apple defies logic and numbers as they clearly are with that ultra niche product called the “Mac Pro,” they might as well “Milk the Mac for all its worth” and make an expandable machine for the masses, even if some argue that user installable parts aren’t the best upgrades in today’s world.
Apple should give us something akin to a Toyota 86 sports car, with an affordable base price of around $1999, then offer Apple branded add-ons. Built well, a maxed out Mac Pro could cost upwards of $25,000 and be the fastest desktop on Earth. But again, the key point is to keep the Mac Pro entry price low so ANYONE could buy into it. That’s all I am saying.
Macs are not iOS devices and therefore we should not expect “zero upgradability” from them. Even though Apple has bastardized the word “Pro” to mean “no upgradability,” that doesn’t mean they cannot suddenly start to THINK DIFFERENT and do the right think by bringing Mac Pro goodness to the MAC faithful.
That's a lot of elitism and entitlement in one comment. Why exactly should able do things the way you want them to without any regard to their needs?
Comments
It has already destroyed its goodwill by neglecting the 5,1 and 6,1 models (the 6,1 models also suffering from utter uselessness for those who needed to use internal PCI hardware).
Stop over-thinking and then trying to tell people what they REALLY need and listen to what USERS say they really need.
2 years to come out with a new tower? That's . . . pathetic.
I don't. Would you please explain it to me?
As I mentioned elsewhere in the thread, I don't feel the need to upgrade my computers as long as the price of maxing it out at the time of purchase is within reason. Laptop storage is a different story, though.
When I bought this Mac the maximum storage capacity was 2TB, and that came at a rather hefty price. As time goes on, the price of storage modules falls while capacity increases. Within a couple years that same amount of money may buy twice as much storage. Over that same couple of years my existing storage will slowly fill up. In the past I've been able to increase both the capacity and speed of the onboard drive. I'm disappointed that I won't be able to do that with this one (especially considering how much it cost).
I appreciate where here you’re coming from. It’s no secret that I have a stupidly upgraded 5,1.
If your primary task is transcoding video then your tool is Apple's Compressor on a cylinder Mac Pro. Certainly it will gladly exploit the dual GPUs of Mac Pro. Compressor primarily relies on the discrete GPU. The only other serious tool is Handbrake but for H.265 you need to check its nightly builds for hvc1 support, the stable release produces "hev1" not supported by Apple devices.
I have trouble with that, for three reasons:
1. History, Computers have traditionally been something we can alter. While there's no reason they have to continue to be, neither does there seem to be any obvious reason they shouldn't.
2. Practicality. An entire industry exists solely to supply parts for computers. The infrastructure already exists. The form factor of a computer allows for user access that may not be practical with an iDevice. There is no clear imperative being satisfied by closing off that access.
3. Cost. I already find it difficult to accept that my handheld computer that cost over a thousand bucks is essentially dumpster fill after only three years. Scale that up to $5000 and it's a much bigger pill to swallow. We accept appliances becoming disposable when they become inexpensive enough that tossing them is more cost effective than repairing them -- like a $50 DVD player. Apple's computers have become more expensive since the change, not less.
Again, I'm not talking about making every computer universally upgradeable. By the time a new CPU is warranted, it's likely the rest of the components are sufficiently dated that replacing the machine makes more sense. Storage is different though. Sufficient gains are possible in a short enough time frame to make upgrading it a more practical and cost-effective step than replacing the entire device.
I don't think it's unreasonable to make a distinction between iDevices and "traditional" computers. They're similar, with many common uses, but they're not equivalents. I think it's reasonable to lock down comparatively inexpensive devices, particularly ones where space is at a premium, while still allowing a limited amount of upgradeability to more elaborate and expensive equipment, particularly when there's no obvious benefit to prohibiting it.
I have Compressor and mostly like it, but it's just not as flexible as Handbrake, surprising as that seems. Handbrake allows much more granular control over the conversion parameters. I spent weeks experimenting until I came up with a combination of settings that yield the best balance of file size and content quality. I'll have to do some experiments with Compressor to see how it compares.
The motivation behind this is speed. The Handbrake settings that produce the results I want take a long time to chew. I figured a mini would be fine because as long as it isn't doing anything else, who cares how long it takes to knock off a project list? I just start it, forget about it, and a few days later I have ten or twelve hours of finished product. The only problem is that I'm impatient. The concept is perfectly valid, I just don't LIKE it!
So the question is how much improvement dropping ~$3000 on a cylinder will provide. Unless it's dramatic, it's probably not a good enough use of limited funds when there's no reason it has to be faster other than "because I don't like waiting." I guess the way to find out is to buy one and try it.
I’m obviously being deliberately sarcastic here. But the point is that if you’re so wrong about me, and your certainly are, you are definitely just as wrong about what you think regarding “the middle class buyer who wants a pro level Mac.“
Middle-class buyers of Macs, in terms of sheer numbers of people, are often happy with an iMac. But this thread is discussing the Mac Pro. And yes there are all categories of people who would want to Mac Pro for the purpose of being able to expand it overtime and thereby getting more life from that Mac, which they know they cannot do with an iMac.
We cannot talk in terms of “the majority of people,“ for like I said in my previous post, “the majority of people“ use silly Windows PCs! And to extend that logical thinking further, no one can defend Apple’s decision to target only the wealthy with a new Mac Pro costing $10,000 or more, seeing Apple would be limiting their own marketshare for such a machine by pricing it so high. That goes against the iOS device marketing philosophy of pricing it low enough that “most people“ can afford it. And even though I will admit that a Mac is not an iOS device, the point is that Apple is in business to make money and you make money by selling more devices. You know you’re not going to sell more devices if you price them too high.
Saying this another way, to come out with a Mac Pro that is utterly unaffordable to most people in the middle class who otherwise would want to buy an expandable Mac (not a silly Dell running Windoze) is to aim for one thing and one thing only: to profit off the super rich, and from professionals who have contract jobs and can make their money back from that Mac purchase after a single contract, and from rich YouTubers who review these Macs all the time and make millions of dollars a year from YouTube or Patreon. But at the end of the day, the number of these “rich” people who could afford such a Mac Pro are teensy tiny compared to the number of middle-class Mac buyers who would buy such an expandable Mac if the price point of such a Mac was substantially lower like the PowerMacs of old.
Why would a large number of Mac only computer buyers want an expandable Mac? Because if the price is low enough, it’s more frugal to buy that Mac because you can expand it overtime and get more life out of the Mac and keep the computer in tiptop shape performance wise through those years. That’s really what the Power Mac was all about. That’s why my own father purchased a power Mac G5 back in the day.
I honestly don’t know why some of you throw rocks at us Mac-only buyers who want and affordably priced Mac Pro. I just don’t understand it. Again, Apple really isn’t going to make a lot of money off of the Mac Pro anyway in terms of global numbers because Macs are not a significant share of the global PC market. And if they price a Mac Pro into the stratosphere, the share of the market they’re going to get for such a luxury item is even smaller. So it only makes logical sense that Apple come out with an expandable Mac for the masses, not only to sell more Macs but also to spread goodwill to the Mac faithful. There’s nothing wrong with bringing back the glory days of the Power Mac. Nothing wrong with it at all! This isn’t me simply being nostalgic. It is common sense.
Those conversion parameters may be illusory or at least may not be useful for all kinds of videos. After creating a lot of presets, I ended up by using the built-in presets with minimal modifications. Mastering that "granular control" requires a very patient and committed person, I'm not. Anyway, if you want to use both Compressor and Handbrake, iMac 4K or 5K may be a cheaper solution.
As I’ve said before, mentioning “numbers“ and “the majority“ or “the minority” doesn’t mean much in the greater scheme of things where Mac users in general are a significant minority in terms of global computer usage worldwide. And whether the consumer is inclined upgrade or not is largely irrelevant to the point I made previously about fact that when you price a computer too high, you will artificially limit the number of people who can afford to buy it in the first place. And no matter what kind of Mac Pro Apple comes out with, Apple will still reap far more profit from the iPhone. So it would be wrong to say that Apple would be foolish to come out with an affordably priced Mac Pro.
Apple should just do the right thing for the sake of positive PR among the Mac faithful and come out with a Mac Pro that is affordably priced in terms of what the middle-class American buyer could afford if they save their pennies. And no, saving their pennies doesn’t mean the starting price of $10,000 either.
I think it would be great is this new group was developing a couple machines in addition to the iMP. That would let Apple produce an upgrade able pro mid ranger plus another machine as powerful as that made by HP, Dell, Sun (I'm not even sure if they are around) - modern big iron that would probably start at $10,000.
Someone just proved they don’t get how the market reacts to a free upgrade. The fact it was an experiment to reveal the price point of an upgrade (no price point whatsoever) shows a complete lack of understanding from Apple’s point of view. Translation: Apple doesn’t give a F... about you guys because you’re a tiny minority’s. I don’t give a F... about you guys because I can’t make a profit. The bottom line is just that. Money. I’m genuinely sorry it’s that way. I’d kill for new cheese grater tower in 2018 but the numbers don’t add up. Not even in PR terms, sales, goodwill, market leader-building. Nada. Nothing. Zilch. If they removed the floppy, the optical drive, the Ethernet port, they sure as hell are going to ditch G4 Cubes, Apple LC TV thingies, and cheese graters.
Apple should give us something akin to a Toyota 86 sports car, with an affordable base price of around $1999, then offer Apple branded add-ons. Built well, a maxed out Mac Pro could cost upwards of $25,000 and be the fastest desktop on Earth. But again, the key point is to keep the Mac Pro entry price low so ANYONE could buy into it. That’s all I am saying.
Macs are not iOS devices and therefore we should not expect “zero upgradability” from them. Even though Apple has bastardized the word “Pro” to mean “no upgradability,” that doesn’t mean they cannot suddenly start to THINK DIFFERENT and do the right think by bringing Mac Pro goodness to the MAC faithful.
The cheese grater is cemented as one as one of the greatest pieces of industrial design in history. I love my ‘09 to death. I also greatly appreciate the trash can and may wind up getting one as a stopgap. Apple tried something different with it and it didn’t really catch like they hoped. Just like the cube and buttonless shuffle. No doubt they learned a great deal on that project and their failures will make the next machine that much stronger. But they’re not going to retreat into mediocrity. And if all you want them to do is build an updated cheese grater... well I have a feeling you are going to be very disappointed.