mjtomlin

saarek said:

M4, that’s an interesting move. Especially considering the M3 isn’t even fully out yet with the Ultra chips (and hopefully the Extreme variant which the Mac Pro desperately needs to justify its existence).

Wonder why they’ve jumped so far forwards, it will simply put people off buying M3 Apple Macs, no one wants to buy last years tech at this years pricing.

M3 is much more expensive to produce and is less power efficient. Makes sense to make the move sooner rather than later. Have a feeling the Mac Studio and Mac Pro will skip the M3 and go straight to M4 this summer.

designr said:

There's an assumption built in here that so-called "spatial computing" is a real thing that anyone really wants.

That's still to be determined.

Being a long time Mac user, from way back in the day, many, many people considered the Mac a toy because of its GUI and they didn’t see the benefit of it because they couldn’t think beyond a command line. So doubting Apple and their vision is a fool’s errand, especially considering the several times they’ve released something that was doomed to fail only to end up to redefining (or owning) their respective markets. Apple doesn’t just throw a device out onto the market without thinking about the entire ecosystem or platform that does or will go along with it.

The unfortunately aspect of the product is that it sat in R&D for so long, it got stuck with an M2 instead of an M3 (Although as far as SoC’s go, I think the rejiggered M3 Pro was designed to end up in this device.). 

I think a lot of people misunderstand what Apple has created with the Vision Pro. This is Apple saying this is the baseline experience users should have with spatial computing devices, and to enable that today, it needs this tech and costs this much. To produce a truly intuitive mixed reality device, they believe you need a no compromise eye and hand tracking system - no VR controllers required. It is the same approach they took with the iPhone and not needing a stylus. It forces them to make natural input work, and work very well. The peripheral can come later for specific use cases; Apple Pencil on iPad for writing, drawing, etc.

I have to believe Apple created an extremely accurate finger and hand tracking system for this device. To build a huge library of gestures to enable a wide variety of inputs and controls.

Got my first Mac in the Fall of ‘87, a Mac SE that still boots up and runs to this day!

Have owned many Macs over the years, currently have and use an M1 Mac mini as my main system, a 2009 27” iMac as a secondary, and a 2014 Mac mini as my server; file/backup, web, media.

These days though, my new M2 iPad gets the most use.

iadlib said:

Waiting for them to take a really bold swing in industrial design with the Mac and iPhone. Still slabs of metal, plastic, and glass. We haven't seen a real design change since the iMac G4 with the swivel neck (which they should be adding to any desktop Mac or standalone display). Or the G4 Cube.

There is so much possibility for them to innovate in the design space given the ridiculous war chest of money they have, but instead, they iteratively change their top-performing devices into slightly different rectangles. 

Hope whoever helms Apple next is willing to be a little more bold than Cook.

There was a very specific reason Steve Jobs went on a design “rampage” back then, to draw attention to the Mac. They needed to rebuild the mind share along with market share. The best way to do that is make “flashy” designs, practical or not - Apple was often accused of form over function in many their designs.

Today, that’s not as necessary. Designs changes now tend to lean toward refinement and functionality.

I do have to admit, I did love waiting to see what Steve would introduce next. Being a long time Mac user, it was always exciting to see new life breathed into the platform.