sennen

Our politicians are effing stupid.

I’ll be getting a Studio Display (regular stand, regular screen finish) later this year, I think. I don’t find anything compelling on this Samsung monitor (or any other 5K monitors on the market) that can beat the build quality, longevity, image/colour quality and support (if required) of the Studio Display.

My Thunderbolt Display lasted more than 10 years before I replaced the LCD panel, it’ll go another 10 though I actually need the 5K now as my editing workflow finally moves to 4K. (Also still using a couple of 23” Cinema Displays in our household that must be pushing 16-18 years of use, still excellent image quality).

eightzero said:

neilm said:

mac_128 said:

macxpress said:

And its not like your Mac just stops working just because you're not using Apple's latest version of macOS. You can still easily use your Mac with High Sierra for at least 2-3yrs if you choose to do so. 

Heck my company forces the Macs to run on El Capitan, despite being able to run High Sierra, and this will likely continue until their next scheduled replacement in 5 years.

Wow, that's incredibly shortsighted of them. Whoever implemented that policy should be fired on security grounds alone.

What do they do about replacements for failed units, or new Macs for new positions? Those are going to come with High Sierra, and most won't work — one exception is the Mac Mini, which of course isn't what you'd call "new" — with El Cap.

Has Apple dropped support for El Cap? No future security updates for that? 

Last night I downloaded a ElCap security update (dated June 01, 2018) for my now home-bound 2008 Mac Pro. I don't ask that much of it or my old 2009 17" MBP these days, but ElCap runs perfectly on them for home/casual use.

doggone said:

rogifan_new said:

Mike Wuerthele said:

brucemc said:

Thank god!  Hopefully this means less complaining from the hard core Mac side of the house, and stalls any further "Apple can't deliver" talk on the forums.

You and me both. That said, there are already posts here, in this thread that heavily lean in that direction.

I’m not a pro user. Just curious the reason for completely sealing the machine. Apple wants to force pro users to pay their upgrade pricing? If it’s an engineering reason then does that signal bad design descisions? As we saw with the trash can Mac Pro Apple sometimes gets it wrong. Why do you think Apple made this decision?

In reality these machines will be low volume sales.  Therefore Apple is breaking even on the development costs.  One way to make up the money is to limit the upgradability and force users to buy RAM etc from Apple at purchase.  
Personally, I think flexibility in a high-end Mac is important.  First it opens up the machine to more customers and therefore increases sales.  Second, having a screen that is not ideal for graphics limits the utility of a machine. A headless machine is a better approach with the ability to upgrade RAM, SSD, and GPU.  Selling an high end iMac will split sales for the MacPro when it eventually comes out.

The flexibility is on the order page. Any professional grader will use a grading monitor. Plenty of graphics professionals and video editors on the other hand use the iMac's built-in monitor, I see them in virtually every studio I visit. I think Apple has made the right call in re-instating the modular Mac Pro which will suit some (though just wait for the complaints upon release), however many 'professionals' don't have the time nor the inclination to open up their workstation and tinker around, these are designed to take in to an approved technician for repairs.

I'm guessing that the RAM will actually be able to be upgraded post-purchase by taking it in to a service centre - but we'll have to wait for the iFixit teardown to know about that for sure.

Hopefully Apple go even harder at privacy and encryption in their next hardware and iOS/OS releases, before the govt forces backdoors on everything.

ivanh said:

fallenjt said:

Damn, my Mini 2011 won’t make the cut...:(. I can’t believe I’ve used a this Mac Mini for 7 years and it still works great!

Not just Mini 2011. The best MacBook Pro I’ve used is MBP Early 2011.  
Apple should continue releasing security patches of macOS High Sierra, or the last upgrade versions for older intel-based Macs.

ElCap is still getting security updates, and even Yosemite as far as I know, so you'll have a few years of support on Sierra and High Sierra left yet.

sog35 said:

rfrmac said:

Let me tell you what this shows me.  <snip>

The Mac is a DYING and SHRINKING platform. PERIOD. 

Increased Mac sales (doubled over the past 8 years), $23bn revenue/year, Apple in the top 5 PC vendors and is the most profitable PC vendor - equates to a dying platform?

rob53 said:

People need to understand that Apple Pay is more than just the backend charging of a credit card. It includes the secure identification of the user and very specific transmission of the minimum amount of data to and from the user and credit card company. Take the secure enclave portion out of the process and it's no more secure than the CurrentC garbage. NFC is also just part of the process but opening that portion to third party usage could easily conflict with other portions of Apple Pay. If the banks want to create their own (unsecure) process they can do it without NFC capabilities. I don't believe Apple is required to open up all capabilities to all developers. 

Yup. Apple Pay is good enough for ANZ (to whom I've just jumped ship), I don't see why the other banks can't use it. But of course it's not about competition, or user choice or security, it's simply about the per¢entages.

I don't see a problem at all with the pricing on the Studio Display. I've been looking for a 5K monitor for a couple of years and there just isn't much out there to choose from - the build quality of the LG is just poor, for example, and I'd hate to have to spend my money on that. Considering the Thunderbolt Display was $999 on release, its successor 11 years later being $1599 is completely reasonable both in terms of the amount one expects things to go up in price over time and the state of the 5K display market.