It's called a debate. It's a place where people share conflicting ideas and opinions. It's OK not to agree without resorting to name calling. That's usually an indication of immaturity or a bad counter-argument. Let's keep it classy and listen to each other.
You can call it a "debate" if you want. People try to pass off their opinions as fact, or they're under the false belief that their needs is what the market should be. Wrong in every way.
I didn't insult anyone in particular. It's more or less a general opinion of many people are nowadays. If you find something in my general post that offends you, grow some thicker skin.
Because you think it’s your right to force people to wear armor? How mature. Maybe you could learn to behave like a mature human being, instead of a defensive and insulting weapons platform.
As for this computer... it looks neat, but Apple has quite clearly dropped me from consideration as a customer. Nothing they sell fits what I need. I can not afford to replace a computer every three years. I’ve been waiting for something worth spending a lot of money on and keeping for ten years. Ha ha ha ha ha...
It’s either too expensive and disposable / suicidal under heavy use, or its build is thermally sensible but so insanely expensive that I could never own one. There’s no dog-damned middle ground anymore.
They’ve also priced out a friend of mine, who’s a student and hobby musician with very little income. She’s been considering abandoning Logic and music-making specifically because she feels she can only afford to buy a Chrome Book to replace her very worn 2010 MacBook Pro, as the current Mac lineup is both ridiculously expensive and getting worse lifetime satisfaction ratings as the years go by.
People like us used to be happy to spend more to get a better made and longer-lived computer or phone/tablet from Apple, with a better OS than frelling Windows. With the proliferation of bugs in iOS, the continually rising base prices on hardware, the continued pathological obsession with thinness, and this new schizophrenic design ideology that is either disposability and lowest common denominator usage scenarios OR insanely priced for reasonable design... Apple is, as a corporate culture, egregiously out of touch.
This is like some kind of weird gentrification project, not a “best computer for everyone” mission.
The last Mac I bought was a used 2011 12,2 iMac because that’s all I could afford. I regret wasting the money on that PITA design. It’s looking lIke it’ll be the LAST computer I will ever buy. No way in hell will I go back to PCs, but Apple has clearly decided I’m an irrelevant market.
Time to give up entirely on computing. Screw it. Hobby or career, computers have not made me an income for years and not provided a drop of personal satisfaction. They just waste my time and my nearly-nonexistent money. No more music or photography as a hobby. No more productive hobbies at all. No more gaming either, because I will NOT buy a dog-damned PC.
I’ve been a computer tech person since age 12. I’ve worked in the business for most of my working life. Result? I hate computers. I *despise* computers. I can’t stand computer geeks, jerkass techs, and apologists (including the privileged cultists on this forum who can’t stand a bit of rational discourse without acting like ego-bruised know-it-all children, who are happy to smear and marginalize anyone less well off than them).
For a moment, between 2007 and 2012, Apple kicked the computer industry’s ass into gear. That was the time when Apple actually saved computing, in my eyes. Made it what it should be. Actual superior product to compete against and challenge the unbeatable status quo. They gave us true pocket computers, high-PPI displays, stable & intuitive operating systems, long-lived computers with solid design... It was no longer a “this is the way it’s always been and always will be” pile of abuse and excuses.
Now we’re back to the same mess of laissez-faire capitalism, inconsistency, unreliability, and “priced out of access” that it was before. “Less bad than PC” isn’t a good enough status.
As for this computer... it looks neat, but Apple has quite clearly dropped me from consideration as a customer. Nothing they sell fits what I need. I can not afford to replace a computer every three years. I’ve been waiting for something worth spending a lot of money on and keeping for ten years. Ha ha ha ha ha...
It’s either too expensive and disposable / suicidal under heavy use, or its build is thermally sensible but so insanely expensive that I could never own one. There’s no dog-damned middle ground anymore.
They’ve also priced out a friend of mine, who’s a student and hobby musician with very little income. She’s been considering abandoning Logic and music-making specifically because she feels she can only afford to buy a Chrome Book to replace her very worn 2010 MacBook Pro, as the current Mac lineup is both ridiculously expensive and getting worse lifetime satisfaction ratings as the years go by.
People like us used to be happy to spend more to get a better made and longer-lived computer or phone/tablet from Apple, with a better OS than frelling Windows. With the proliferation of bugs in iOS, the continually rising base prices on hardware, the continued pathological obsession with thinness, and this new schizophrenic design ideology that is either disposability and lowest common denominator usage scenarios OR insanely priced for reasonable design... Apple is, as a corporate culture, egregiously out of touch.
This is like some kind of weird gentrification project, not a “best computer for everyone” mission.
The last Mac I bought was a used 2011 12,2 iMac because that’s all I could afford. I regret wasting the money on that PITA design. It’s looking lIke it’ll be the LAST computer I will ever buy. No way in hell will I go back to PCs, but Apple has clearly decided I’m an irrelevant market.
Time to give up entirely on computing. Screw it. Hobby or career, computers have not made me an income for years and not provided a drop of personal satisfaction. They just waste my time and my nearly-nonexistent money. No more music or photography as a hobby. No more productive hobbies at all. No more gaming either, because I will NOT buy a dog-damned PC.
I’ve been a computer tech person since age 12. I’ve worked in the business for most of my working life. Result? I hate computers. I *despise* computers. I can’t stand computer geeks, jerkass techs, and apologists (including the privileged cultists on this forum who can’t stand a bit of rational discourse without acting like ego-bruised know-it-all children, who are happy to smear and marginalize anyone less well off than them).
For a moment, between 2007 and 2012, Apple kicked the computer industry’s ass into gear. That was the time when Apple actually saved computing, in my eyes. Made it what it should be. Actual superior product to compete against and challenge the unbeatable status quo. They gave us true pocket computers, high-PPI displays, stable & intuitive operating systems, long-lived computers with solid design... It was no longer a “this is the way it’s always been and always will be” pile of abuse and excuses.
Now we’re back to the same mess of laissez-faire capitalism, inconsistency, unreliability, and “priced out of access” that it was before. “Less bad than PC” isn’t a good enough status.
Screw it all.
So you are tooo broke to afford macs but won't touch PCs? Well you can always try Ubuntu
I don't think so. Mac sales are tiny compared to the rest of their business and I think this new machine was released not so much because Apple anticipates substantial revenue from it, but to placate the pro community who they want to keep on their side. But I think a second tier machine would be completely out of the question unless it could be easily done with component swaps. I think a few years down the road, Apple may be saying, "we made the machine you said you wanted and you didn't buy it."
In fiscal 2017, Apple sold 19.2 million Macs. In fiscal 2018, Apple sold 18.2 million Macs. For the first two quarters of this fiscal, Mac revenue is up very slightly, by about 2.6%. But those unit numbers for fiscal 2018 compares with almost 218 million iPhones and 44 million iPads. Where do you think Apple is going to put their efforts? Apple's Services revenue is far higher than Mac revenue.
I would like to see Apple return to a MacBook Pro design in which the user can upgrade/replace storage, memory and battery. I think they made a huge mistake by getting away from that. If they did it because they don't want a seam in the case, they need psychological help. If they did it because they want to force users to upgrade to a new machine, then it demonstrates a hypocritical stance on being environmentally friendly and a very cynical attitude towards their users. I have to wonder who at Apple has decided this product strategy: whether it's all Ive or whether it's other executives.
I agree on the fact they got away from the user upgradability of the machines, although the 5K 27 inch iMacs kind of have that even though more can be done. It sounds like since Phil wasn't on stage, he must be in the 'dog house' now or didn't want to go on there and look hypocritical compared to his 2013 stance. Ive isn't in charge of the product strategy so I believe this was all on Phil Schiller, Tim Cook, and Ive.
For the new Mac Pro, I'm going to go on a limb and assume that Dan Riccio and Johnny " Christopher Walken " Srouji from Hardware Engineering and Hardware Technologies argued a need for this new design. But also, the feedback from a group of professionals consulting with the executives on the type of pro machine needed for their industries involved greatly influenced their decision.
Who/what are enthusiasts? Are they so-called professionals or not? I’m struggling to understand why an iMac Pro or a Mac mini wouldn’t meet their requirements.
An iMac (not) Pro is a glued shut throwaway that will cook itself under heavy-duty use. It also has the problem of a built-in mic and camera that cannot be disconnected. Yes, that is an issue for many people and commercial customers.
The Mac mini is a nice computer with two big problems- integrated graphics and it has to be taken apart in order to upgrade the memory.
The new design is interesting, but I want to see how much heat this beast throws off and how loud the fans are. My cheesegrater is dead silent and stays quite cool even when under a significant load. Any laptop or the Mac mini will spool up and the fans are quite loud. I own one of the new Mac minis ( 3.2Ghz i7 and 16 GB 2667 MHz DDR4) and something as simple as transcoding video spools up the fans to be very noisy. I have been researching eGPUs and am not impressed by what I see relative to cost.
Apple does not need to reinvent the wheel- there is quite a market for a headless Mac that runs from about $2000-4,000 that can take standard cards and can be user upgraded for memory. Let BTO scale from i7-i9 Desktop grade up to the Xeon class CPUs. A simple case- not a styling exercise- will suffice.
I was afraid of that when looking at the new Mac Minis to replace my mid-2010 iMac running on 10GB of RAM with 500 GB storage for my graphic design/digital art work. But when I looked at the graphics card and compared it to the newer iMacs, it gave me pause. It's quite disturbing to me how Apple should've allowed the user to swap out the graphics card or, at least, redesign the Mini so that it has a proper ventilation grill or a 'cheese grater' design at all sides of it, like a mini Mac Pro. So I've decided to skip that machine and probably upgrade to either a mid-range 4K iMac or the low end 27 inch 5K iMac, although the latter may be mega overkill for the resolution alone because most designers I know work between 1080p/HD to 4K at the most for print based work and also on screen output. The 4K iMac should last a decade should I decide to get one even though I'm giving myself until the end of the year to do it since I got car repairs to worry about first.
Looks amazing though I would like to see how the likely crippled $5999 version compares to similar PC workstations. I can't help thinking that the Apple Tax is back with a bang. The stuff looks like it's fantastically engineered (probably over the top for 90%). Anyone want to guess how much RAM the $5999 version will ship with? We're talking a base version that's DOUBLE the price of the current base. That's a big jump in anyone's book.
An HP Z4 with the last-generation (=Skylake) 8 Core Xeon-W (i.e., W-2145) with 1000W chassis, 2x10Gb Ethernet, 32 GB (4x8) of RAM, 256 GB NVMe SSD, and AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 with 8 GB is $6965.
So that thinking is wrong.
That's an extremely misleading comparison using a website price for a platform that originally launched in 2017 with superior NVIDIA options, a massive list of ISV certifications and an included 3 years of on-site warranty.
It’s not misleading at all. The point of the comparison is to show the current pricing of the closest parallel configuration offered by HP. When the Cascade Lake configurations for the Z4s with Xeon-W and the current Radeon Pro become available, they’ll be similarly priced. The point is that Apple is not price gouging here — this is what these machines cost. I’m not knocking the HP — the 2019 edition of this machine will be impressive — it just won’t be much cheaper than the Mac Pro.
I don't think that cost is an issue when you consider the specs of the Mac Pro. From what I have seen in the posts, the issue is that there is there is no low-cost Mac Pro. Compare that to the same HP Z4 you mention, which starts at $900 with an entry configuration, and then you add the options you need based in your budget. With the Mac Pro, your base configuration starts at $6000, and it only includes 1-yr of warranty.
It took that long to bring back the cheese grater ?
It may resemble the old cheese grater; but has a completely different design. It's designed on what I would liken to a space frame, as we would see in a race car, as opposed to monocoque construction of the old cheese grater. The CPU is in a completely different location, that frees up space for addition PCIE slots. To me, the rounded handles are a godsend, as I cut myself and my clothes all too often carrying around the old cheese graters.
P.S. You can buy a new Peterbilt 579 Sleeper Cab for $161,900. That's a piece of Pro equipment that's just used to move heavy things from one place to another. (Though some here have rewritten definitions such that a full-time, small-business owner, long-haul truck driver would not be called a "professional." I would dare that person to hang out at a truck stop and inform everyone that they're... what?... truck enthusiasts?)
In any case, Pro gear has a price, and it's usually higher than the price for things that are built for less intensive uses. There's a lot of gnashing of teeth going on here that's not going to help anyone except maybe some dentists.
Looks amazing though I would like to see how the likely crippled $5999 version compares to similar PC workstations. I can't help thinking that the Apple Tax is back with a bang. The stuff looks like it's fantastically engineered (probably over the top for 90%). Anyone want to guess how much RAM the $5999 version will ship with? We're talking a base version that's DOUBLE the price of the current base. That's a big jump in anyone's book.
An HP Z4 with the last-generation (=Skylake) 8 Core Xeon-W (i.e., W-2145) with 1000W chassis, 2x10Gb Ethernet, 32 GB (4x8) of RAM, 256 GB NVMe SSD, and AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 with 8 GB is $6965.
So that thinking is wrong.
That's an extremely misleading comparison using a website price for a platform that originally launched in 2017 with superior NVIDIA options, a massive list of ISV certifications and an included 3 years of on-site warranty.
It’s not misleading at all. The point of the comparison is to show the current pricing of the closest parallel configuration offered by HP. When the Cascade Lake configurations for the Z4s with Xeon-W and the current Radeon Pro become available, they’ll be similarly priced. The point is that Apple is not price gouging here — this is what these machines cost. I’m not knocking the HP — the 2019 edition of this machine will be impressive — it just won’t be much cheaper than the Mac Pro.
I don't think that cost is an issue when you consider the specs of the Mac Pro. From what I have seen in the posts, the issue is that there is there is no low-cost Mac Pro. Compare that to the same HP Z4 you mention, which starts at $900 with an entry configuration, and then you add the options you need based in your budget. With the Mac Pro, your base configuration starts at $6000, and it only includes 1-yr of warranty.
I get that -- I did the comparison to disagree with someone who suggested "the Apple Tax is back with a bang."
What you're describing isn't the mythical "Apple Tax" -- it's a company that isn't trying to sell a computer to every person or business who needs a computer. That's a problem if you're out in the cold. I'd love to see them create a "Mac" -- basically a headless iMac with access to RAM, storage, and GPU. Maybe a cube. But I'm not holding my breath.
The best hope for the mid-level customer who doesn't want an iMac is for them to come out with a Mac mini with discrete graphics and access to RAM and storage. That could happen.
It's called a debate. It's a place where people share conflicting ideas and opinions. It's OK not to agree without resorting to name calling. That's usually an indication of immaturity or a bad counter-argument. Let's keep it classy and listen to each other.
You can call it a "debate" if you want. People try to pass off their opinions as fact, or they're under the false belief that their needs is what the market should be. Wrong in every way.
I didn't insult anyone in particular. It's more or less a general opinion of many people are nowadays. If you find something in my general post that offends you, grow some thicker skin.
Because you think it’s your right to force people to wear armor? How mature. Maybe you could learn to behave like a mature human being, instead of a defensive and insulting weapons platform.
CON: Apple has redefined what a "pro" user is by making a workstation specifically for organizations like Pixar. They left out pretty much every indie app developer, and that's a real shame. I still own a cheese grater Mac Pro. It was pricey but I could afford one. I can't afford this new one.
I find it hard to believe that devs ever need that kind of power.
Exactly. The most processor intense activity most software developers do is code compilation. An out of the box iMac is more than up the the job. But of course, many software developers earn serious $$$ so they’ll but the Mac Pro because they can.
Developers actually do have to TEST their software on the hardware it is targeted for. So, YES, developers also NEED such a machine in their portfolio. – Particularly if they are developing anything that is taxing the graphics subsystem.
Also people who can afford this Mac Pro has the expectation that a wide range of general purpose software also run on their systems, so it is not only developers of "pro" software who have a need to test on it.
Mac developers who can get good performance out of a Mac book Pro can be absolutely certain that it is going to work on a Mac Pro.
Love how amatuers complain about the costs of Mac Pro... it's for Professionals making lots of money... not for amatuers living on a few hundreds.
Not true. There are people who need workstations that are not rolling in money. People like scientists and engineers. The Pro market extends way beyond the media business.
This is another nice engineering exercise but leaves a gaping hole between the Mac mini and this. A version with something less than an 8 core Xeon CPU could be offered for substantially less.
If a scientist or engineer needs this amount of power, then they are doing work where this can be bought. Scientists spend tens of thousands to millions on equipment. Either a grant pays for that, or the company or university does. An engineer rarely works alone, so they’re in a similar situation. Do you have any idea how much a modern scope can cost? Tens of thousands. Power supplies, voltmeters, etc.? If that engineer is doing the kind of work that requires this type of computer, then (s)he’s already using perhaps over $100,000 of test and measurement equipment. The work involves RF, then we’re talking possibly four times as much.
this computer is just another piece of equipment,
Minimum for a capital purchase is often $5K. $6K starting price is reasonable.
6k for a machine that gets left in the dust by any self-built PC with a decent Threadripper and a similar GPU at 2/3 of what Apple is asking?
Pass.
Theres always one. Every time Apple produces a device someone puts together some fake machine in their heads which is worth 2/3s or 1/2 or $10.
Good, off you go. That machine will cost you time and labour ( which is why its cheaper to make a sandwich rather than buy one), will have no support whatsoever when you glue the whatsis to the wotnot, and will have bog all resale value, except maybe to friends; because nobody wants a self build put together with glue and no expertise in a crap box with no brand, support or warranty.
As for this computer... it looks neat, but Apple has quite clearly dropped me from consideration as a customer. Nothing they sell fits what I need. I can not afford to replace a computer every three years. I’ve been waiting for something worth spending a lot of money on and keeping for ten years. Ha ha ha ha ha...
It’s either too expensive and disposable / suicidal under heavy use, or its build is thermally sensible but so insanely expensive that I could never own one. There’s no dog-damned middle ground anymore.
They’ve also priced out a friend of mine, who’s a student and hobby musician with very little income. She’s been considering abandoning Logic and music-making specifically because she feels she can only afford to buy a Chrome Book to replace her very worn 2010 MacBook Pro, as the current Mac lineup is both ridiculously expensive and getting worse lifetime satisfaction ratings as the years go by.
People like us used to be happy to spend more to get a better made and longer-lived computer or phone/tablet from Apple, with a better OS than frelling Windows. With the proliferation of bugs in iOS, the continually rising base prices on hardware, the continued pathological obsession with thinness, and this new schizophrenic design ideology that is either disposability and lowest common denominator usage scenarios OR insanely priced for reasonable design... Apple is, as a corporate culture, egregiously out of touch.
This is like some kind of weird gentrification project, not a “best computer for everyone” mission.
The last Mac I bought was a used 2011 12,2 iMac because that’s all I could afford. I regret wasting the money on that PITA design. It’s looking lIke it’ll be the LAST computer I will ever buy. No way in hell will I go back to PCs, but Apple has clearly decided I’m an irrelevant market.
Time to give up entirely on computing. Screw it. Hobby or career, computers have not made me an income for years and not provided a drop of personal satisfaction. They just waste my time and my nearly-nonexistent money. No more music or photography as a hobby. No more productive hobbies at all. No more gaming either, because I will NOT buy a dog-damned PC.
I’ve been a computer tech person since age 12. I’ve worked in the business for most of my working life. Result? I hate computers. I *despise* computers. I can’t stand computer geeks, jerkass techs, and apologists (including the privileged cultists on this forum who can’t stand a bit of rational discourse without acting like ego-bruised know-it-all children, who are happy to smear and marginalize anyone less well off than them).
For a moment, between 2007 and 2012, Apple kicked the computer industry’s ass into gear. That was the time when Apple actually saved computing, in my eyes. Made it what it should be. Actual superior product to compete against and challenge the unbeatable status quo. They gave us true pocket computers, high-PPI displays, stable & intuitive operating systems, long-lived computers with solid design... It was no longer a “this is the way it’s always been and always will be” pile of abuse and excuses.
Now we’re back to the same mess of laissez-faire capitalism, inconsistency, unreliability, and “priced out of access” that it was before. “Less bad than PC” isn’t a good enough status.
Screw it all.
Of all the navel-gazing, narsististic, bellyaching, irrelevant-to-the-subject posts I’ve ever read, yours is right up there at the top of the heap. I have more than a nodding familiarity with being poor. It was Apple in large measure that’s responsible for my leaving that world behind - well, Apple and an amazing wife.
Blaming Apple or computers or the world for your plight may seem justified, but it’s an anchor. You’ve made one right decision in your life: You stuck with Apple. Time to dig in and make the most of that.
CON: Apple has redefined what a "pro" user is by making a workstation specifically for organizations like Pixar. They left out pretty much every indie app developer, and that's a real shame. I still own a cheese grater Mac Pro. It was pricey but I could afford one. I can't afford this new one.
I find it hard to believe that devs ever need that kind of power.
Exactly. The most processor intense activity most software developers do is code compilation. An out of the box iMac is more than up the the job. But of course, many software developers earn serious $$$ so they’ll but the Mac Pro because they can.
Developers actually do have to TEST their software on the hardware it is targeted for. So, YES, developers also NEED such a machine in their portfolio. – Particularly if they are developing anything that is taxing the graphics subsystem.
Also people who can afford this Mac Pro has the expectation that a wide range of general purpose software also run on their systems, so it is not only developers of "pro" software who have a need to test on it.
Mac developers who can get good performance out of a Mac book Pro can be absolutely certain that it is going to work on a Mac Pro.
No, getting full performance out of 28 cores is way more complicated that 8-12 cores.
6k for a machine that gets left in the dust by any self-built PC with a decent Threadripper and a similar GPU at 2/3 of what Apple is asking?
Pass.
Well, sure, if you don't mind spending time twiddling with hardware problems, untested "cutting edge" drivers, Windows bloatware glitches and crashes and so forth.
This is the age-old outsider critique of Apple: you can piece together a Windows machine by pulling all the newest parts off the shelf, throw them into a box together, and end up with a machine that's screaming fast, equipped with all the latest bells and whistles, and costs less than the newest Apple device.Then again, which machine is actually faster and cheaper, the DIY one that requires frequent time under the hood, or the one that's been engineered as a whole from stem to stern? The problem is, a Windows machine is still a Windows machine. It's running a bloatware OS that has been written specifically to try its best to accommodate every possible variable and option, from fifteen year-old legacy machines to DIY hotrods, and from tablets to phones(?!) to notebooks to desktop workstations, to hybrids of all of the above. Try as they might, the fine people at Microsoft can't anticipate every imaginable variable, so the result is compatibility issues and "creative" DIY workarounds that seem really clever but really just add complexity and inefficiency. A homemade supercar rated for 300 mph on paper only goes 0 mph when you're under the hood with a wrench.
The latest Apple device usually doesn't have every conceivable option that's been available since last Friday, specifically because they've put more thought into it than drawing up a hardware wish-list spec sheet and topping it off with impulse buys from the end-cap displays at BestBuy. What they do have is hardware and software that's been put together at the same time by engineers and programmers who communicate with each other throughout the development process. The result is a machine that the user spends more time using and less time fixing while bragging about the specs.
As for this computer... it looks neat, but Apple has quite clearly dropped me from consideration as a customer. Nothing they sell fits what I need. I can not afford to replace a computer every three years. I’ve been waiting for something worth spending a lot of money on and keeping for ten years. Ha ha ha ha ha...
It’s either too expensive and disposable / suicidal under heavy use, or its build is thermally sensible but so insanely expensive that I could never own one. There’s no dog-damned middle ground anymore.
[...]
Time to give up entirely on computing. Screw it. Hobby or career, computers have not made me an income for years and not provided a drop of personal satisfaction. They just waste my time and my nearly-nonexistent money. No more music or photography as a hobby. No more productive hobbies at all. No more gaming either, because I will NOT buy a dog-damned PC.
I’ve been a computer tech person since age 12. I’ve worked in the business for most of my working life. Result? I hate computers. I *despise* computers. I can’t stand computer geeks, jerkass techs, and apologists (including the privileged cultists on this forum who can’t stand a bit of rational discourse without acting like ego-bruised know-it-all children, who are happy to smear and marginalize anyone less well off than them).
[...]
Now we’re back to the same mess of laissez-faire capitalism, inconsistency, unreliability, and “priced out of access” that it was before. “Less bad than PC” isn’t a good enough status.
Screw it all.
So you are tooo broke to afford macs but won't touch PCs? Well you can always try Ubuntu
Run Ubuntu on what? I just said I won’t touch PCs. On top of that, I would rather use Windows 10 than ANY strain of Linux.
I had been expecting to be able to replace both my old gaming PC and my iMac with a new Mac Pro. HA HA HA HA HA!!
What a miserable day. There’s just no end of those in my life. All I had was my hobbies, and, with this revelation from out-of-touch Apple, I can pretty much give up on those too, once the second-hand garbage iMac I have now dies on me.
As for this computer... it looks neat, but Apple has quite clearly dropped me from consideration as a customer. Nothing they sell fits what I need. I can not afford to replace a computer every three years. I’ve been waiting for something worth spending a lot of money on and keeping for ten years. Ha ha ha ha ha...
[... snip...]
Now we’re back to the same mess of laissez-faire capitalism, inconsistency, unreliability, and “priced out of access” that it was before. “Less bad than PC” isn’t a good enough status.
Screw it all.
Of all the navel-gazing, narsististic, bellyaching, irrelevant-to-the-subject posts I’ve ever read, yours is right up there at the top of the heap. I have more than a nodding familiarity with being poor. It was Apple in large measure that’s responsible for my leaving that world behind - well, Apple and an amazing wife.
Blaming Apple or computers or the world for your plight may seem justified, but it’s an anchor. You’ve made one right decision in your life: You stuck with Apple. Time to dig in and make the most of that.
Lucky you. Go learn about your bias: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias ... or by all means just keep ignorantly slamming people who haven’t had your luck. Typical of people around here.
Comments
It’s either too expensive and disposable / suicidal under heavy use, or its build is thermally sensible but so insanely expensive that I could never own one. There’s no dog-damned middle ground anymore.
They’ve also priced out a friend of mine, who’s a student and hobby musician with very little income. She’s been considering abandoning Logic and music-making specifically because she feels she can only afford to buy a Chrome Book to replace her very worn 2010 MacBook Pro, as the current Mac lineup is both ridiculously expensive and getting worse lifetime satisfaction ratings as the years go by.
People like us used to be happy to spend more to get a better made and longer-lived computer or phone/tablet from Apple, with a better OS than frelling Windows. With the proliferation of bugs in iOS, the continually rising base prices on hardware, the continued pathological obsession with thinness, and this new schizophrenic design ideology that is either disposability and lowest common denominator usage scenarios OR insanely priced for reasonable design... Apple is, as a corporate culture, egregiously out of touch.
This is like some kind of weird gentrification project, not a “best computer for everyone” mission.
The last Mac I bought was a used 2011 12,2 iMac because that’s all I could afford. I regret wasting the money on that PITA design. It’s looking lIke it’ll be the LAST computer I will ever buy. No way in hell will I go back to PCs, but Apple has clearly decided I’m an irrelevant market.
Time to give up entirely on computing. Screw it. Hobby or career, computers have not made me an income for years and not provided a drop of personal satisfaction. They just waste my time and my nearly-nonexistent money. No more music or photography as a hobby. No more productive hobbies at all. No more gaming either, because I will NOT buy a dog-damned PC.
I’ve been a computer tech person since age 12. I’ve worked in the business for most of my working life. Result? I hate computers. I *despise* computers. I can’t stand computer geeks, jerkass techs, and apologists (including the privileged cultists on this forum who can’t stand a bit of rational discourse without acting like ego-bruised know-it-all children, who are happy to smear and marginalize anyone less well off than them).
For a moment, between 2007 and 2012, Apple kicked the computer industry’s ass into gear. That was the time when Apple actually saved computing, in my eyes. Made it what it should be. Actual superior product to compete against and challenge the unbeatable status quo. They gave us true pocket computers, high-PPI displays, stable & intuitive operating systems, long-lived computers with solid design... It was no longer a “this is the way it’s always been and always will be” pile of abuse and excuses.
Now we’re back to the same mess of laissez-faire capitalism, inconsistency, unreliability, and “priced out of access” that it was before. “Less bad than PC” isn’t a good enough status.
Screw it all.
So you are tooo broke to afford macs but won't touch PCs? Well you can always try Ubuntu
For the new Mac Pro, I'm going to go on a limb and assume that Dan Riccio and Johnny " Christopher Walken " Srouji from Hardware Engineering and Hardware Technologies argued a need for this new design. But also, the feedback from a group of professionals consulting with the executives on the type of pro machine needed for their industries involved greatly influenced their decision.
In any case, Pro gear has a price, and it's usually higher than the price for things that are built for less intensive uses. There's a lot of gnashing of teeth going on here that's not going to help anyone except maybe some dentists.
What you're describing isn't the mythical "Apple Tax" -- it's a company that isn't trying to sell a computer to every person or business who needs a computer. That's a problem if you're out in the cold. I'd love to see them create a "Mac" -- basically a headless iMac with access to RAM, storage, and GPU. Maybe a cube. But I'm not holding my breath.
The best hope for the mid-level customer who doesn't want an iMac is for them to come out with a Mac mini with discrete graphics and access to RAM and storage. That could happen.
Theres always one. Every time Apple produces a device someone puts together some fake machine in their heads which is worth 2/3s or 1/2 or $10.
Good, off you go. That machine will cost you time and labour ( which is why its cheaper to make a sandwich rather than buy one), will have no support whatsoever when you glue the whatsis to the wotnot, and will have bog all resale value, except maybe to friends; because nobody wants a self build put together with glue and no expertise in a crap box with no brand, support or warranty.
Blaming Apple or computers or the world for your plight may seem justified, but it’s an anchor. You’ve made one right decision in your life: You stuck with Apple. Time to dig in and make the most of that.
This is the age-old outsider critique of Apple: you can piece together a Windows machine by pulling all the newest parts off the shelf, throw them into a box together, and end up with a machine that's screaming fast, equipped with all the latest bells and whistles, and costs less than the newest Apple device.Then again, which machine is actually faster and cheaper, the DIY one that requires frequent time under the hood, or the one that's been engineered as a whole from stem to stern? The problem is, a Windows machine is still a Windows machine. It's running a bloatware OS that has been written specifically to try its best to accommodate every possible variable and option, from fifteen year-old legacy machines to DIY hotrods, and from tablets to phones(?!) to notebooks to desktop workstations, to hybrids of all of the above. Try as they might, the fine people at Microsoft can't anticipate every imaginable variable, so the result is compatibility issues and "creative" DIY workarounds that seem really clever but really just add complexity and inefficiency. A homemade supercar rated for 300 mph on paper only goes 0 mph when you're under the hood with a wrench.
The latest Apple device usually doesn't have every conceivable option that's been available since last Friday, specifically because they've put more thought into it than drawing up a hardware wish-list spec sheet and topping it off with impulse buys from the end-cap displays at BestBuy. What they do have is hardware and software that's been put together at the same time by engineers and programmers who communicate with each other throughout the development process. The result is a machine that the user spends more time using and less time fixing while bragging about the specs.
I had been expecting to be able to replace both my old gaming PC and my iMac with a new Mac Pro. HA HA HA HA HA!!
What a miserable day. There’s just no end of those in my life. All I had was my hobbies, and, with this revelation from out-of-touch Apple, I can pretty much give up on those too, once the second-hand garbage iMac I have now dies on me.
Lucky you. Go learn about your bias: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias ... or by all means just keep ignorantly slamming people who haven’t had your luck. Typical of people around here.