altivec88

Its interesting that the Apple Car was brought up in this article as just being a few years off.  Wasn't it a few days ago that the lead Swift creator, Chris Lattner also left Apple and is now "thrilled" to be at Tesla working on something new and important such as car AI.    Hmmmm, couldn't Apple use someone like that in their auto division working on their car AI.  Sounds like this former engineer hit the nail on the head by saying each employee is forced to be narrow focused.  Clearly, Chris must have heard rumors about Apple's car AI, why couldn't he be transferred over to the auto devision if thats what he was interested in?  As this engineer said, Apple use to be "thin, competitive, dynamic".  Does anyone believe those words to ring true today.   It just seems all blahhh over at Apple.

bestkeptsecret said:

sirlance99 said:

zone said:

This is so stupid... stop making it sound like the company is going out of business. A sales decline of an amazing number is still amazing! Apple make a larger profit in 1 quarter than most companies out there. Stop trying to manipulate the stock...

Stop taking a company so seriously like it's life or death. It's just a freaking company. No need to have that much emotional attachment to it. I like what they make and use a lot of the products but don't get bent out of shape if anyone says anything good or bad about them. There are much other things in the world to care about more than a company.

This is a site for people who love all things Apple. They will talk passionately about all things Apple.

The people who come here for news do not come into the comments section. They just check the news from the main page.

The only other people who come here are trolls. You know, the kind of guys who get vicarious pleasure in tearing into all things Apple and the people who like Apple.

Wow.  So the only two options are "love all things Apple" or "you are a troll".  No wonder the comments section turns into a circus as if somebody just shot your mother every time someone says something critical.   You know, its possible to like Apple products and still have differing view points.   Apple nor any other company is perfect.  I actually find the response calling the comment stupid and accusing the poster of manipulating stock more of a troll comment.   The point of a discussion board is to discuss things.  I just mentioned that I would like to see all 3 sized phones to be the best they can be and i got jumped on.  So I guess that makes me a troll.  Sheesh.  I guess the comment section of every ariticle should be like this.

Comment 1:  I love Apple.

Comment 2:  Yah me too

Comment 3:  I love the colour of their old rainbow logo

 Moderator:  How dare you like the rainbow logo over the decision to have a solid logo.  Banned for life.

Comment 4:  I love Apple.

Comment 5:  Yah me too

Sounds like a fun place.  I hope you find a site thats all pixie dust and fairy tales like that.

The one thing that bothers me about their phone line up is the up sell mentalitiy of the plus.  I own a plus, so its all good for me, but my wife doesn't like big phones.  She wanted the better camera but opted to get the regular sized phone with disappointment set in from the start.  Now that she's had it for a while, she hates it even more and wants to go back to the even smaller 5s size she had previously.   But the current phone Apple sells at that size is so old specked, there is no chance.  She would be willing to pay the same price of the plus for a smaller phone with similar specs as the 7plus, but Apple doesn't sell anything remotely like that.  It looks like her next phone will be an Android.

Point being,  phone size shouldn't be the determining factor of which products get better stuff unless of course its a physical constraint making it impossible.

woe woe woe.  Lets hold our horses here.

I was not expecting that this topic would turn into analytics of my company.   Although, I don't owe anyone any explanations, I will provide some further insight into my previous comments.

First off the math:
-We are not Walt Disney.  I said, we are a small company.  
-We have 8 Mac Pros.  
-Before 2010, we would typically upgrade our machines every 2 years
-Its 2017 so we missed 3 typical upgrade cycles.   3 x $80k = $240 000.00.    I apologize.  I was $60k away from using the word "several" hundreds of thousands.  I did not actually sit down and do the math when I typed it.  I never thought it would be a point of controversy, that I would be called on it, or it was meaningful in anyway.

Technical reasons Why we haven't upgraded:
- In our business, Its all about the CPU
- As mentioned. we typically update every 2 years and on average were seeing a doubling of performance at each upgrade.
- 2012  cycle -  First time we skipped because the 2012 MacPro's had very little improvement in terms of CPU
- 2013 update -  Looked cool but I didn't care what it looked like.  They chose to remove a CPU which ultimately meant they could have offered a 24 core system but decided to go with 12 for the sake of making it smaller .  Bottom line, very little improvement in CPU.  Not worth spending 80k for no reason.
- 2014 update - Understood it was not about me and learned to be okay with 1 CPU.  Lots of rumors about Intels new E5v3 with 16 cores as a direct replacement part.  Great... We will update to these. but they never appeared
- 2015 update -  E5v3 with 16 cores is for sure out... just waiting for the right keynote to get it in the MacPro.  Phill's comment about innovating his ass and that this is the platform for the next ten years lead me to believe that they had the interest of simply inserting new CPU's with the same socket
- 2016 update - Now furious. E5v4 with 22 cores is out.   Surely they will update the MacPro.  Tim continues to tell us how important the Mac is.   New "Hello" event.  Surely they will upgrade the MacPro there.  Nope.
-2017 update -  More vague promises about how important the Mac is but this time he used the word "desktops" so maybe.  yet here we are 7 years later, and there is very little improvement over our 2010 macPro's.

Why haven't we switched yet:
- I mentioned a few things in my post 170 of some of the reasons why, so I won't repeat those
- First off I never said that we are going bankrupt.  We are doing great.  I said, after stalling for 6 years, we are starting to notice that we are falling behind the quality that our competition can produce (more CPU allows them to crank up the realism. Its not enough for clients to notice but we notice and if we keep on this path, then yah, we will start losing clients.  We are also aware that our competitors are experimenting with VR.  If we don't start learning this, again, we will start to lose clients.   So now,  GPU's are important to us too.  As of Jan 2017, the $10k MacPro is a joke for VR.
- As a kid. The 128k Mac was my very first computer. It was so far ahead of the pack at that time and made a huge impact on my life.  Lets just say I put all of my eggs in that basket and built a pretty decent sized company for myself.  I make a really good living and I'm happy with what I do and the people I'm around.
- By putting all my eggs in that basket, I did not learn windows or linux.   I'm not saying I can't learn them, but until now, I have had no reason to do so because things have been great the past 32 years.
- A lot of people working for me that I love like family are also in this position of only knowing Mac.

I don't want to go into my entire life storey so I think the small snap shot above is enough to make my point.   I do think you calling me incompetent is a fair assessment in terms of soaking up every last drop of performance and profit from my company.   No sane person would still be using MacPros for this.  But at this point in my life, its not all about the money.    I'm comfortable and enjoy my work.  Learning the ins and outs of windows and/or linux to be good enough to not disrupt the company when something goes wrong is not something I would enjoy.  It adds another layer of complexity which I would like to avoid if possible.  As the saying goes, if it aint broke, don't fix it.  We are at a cross roads.  I believed their words that the Mac was important or more so I didn't want to believe the party is over.  6 years of stall is incompetence on my part and we can no longer masquerade the speed differences and advancements that our competitors have.  I can not allow Apple to keep stringing us along. March is D-Day.  Although, I enjoy how things are, its swim or sink time.

I would like to end by saying.  I'm not sure how this turned into talking about me and this will be the last words I say about myself as it is irrelevant to the conversation.  If it makes you feel better to call me names, go for it, it doesn't bother me.  You have no idea who I am, nor have you waked a step in my shoes.  In the end, my life or my company has nothing to do with me saying, in my opinion the current MacPro is an embarrassment.  You are free to disagree with my opinion if you wish.  cheers.

Rayz2016 said:

altivec88 said:

Rayz2016 said:

altivec88 said:

Rayz2016 said:

gatorguy said:

Rayz2016 said:

Mikeymike said:

Rayz2016 said:

saarek said:

I don't understand how they let the Mac lineup get in the state it's in.

With their money they could easily have upgraded the line up with new internals whilst they finished off any innovations that they wanted to roll out.

Piss poor management, very unusual.

Apple doesn't like to use money from one division to prop up another one, especially if it's one as well established as the Mac division. Microsoft did that with Windows mobile, which is probably why it took them so long to realise it was failing. 

The larger point is that , the iMac has been stagnating, and there is no reason it has needed to. (certainly not for lack of Apple monies)

If Intels chips aren't producing significant speed gains then what is the point upgrading the machines? Well, there isn't any, unless you can come up with the tech to work around it. 

Post #77 makes what seems like valid arguments. 

Not really though. The chips didn't improve, so the suggestion here is that Apple takes the existing chips and pack more cores into a larger case. 

Pardon Me?

So what you are telling me is that there is no improvement in these processors.   That a 22 core E5v4 would render our scenes at roughly the same speed as a 12 core E5v2.  I think you need to do some more investigating on this before you continue spewing out your false assumptions.

The socket and thermal properties are exactly the same.  Using the new chips is just a simple swap with no case design change required, you know like Dell and HP are able to do or are you saying Dell and HP have super case designs where they were able to update their workstations twice in this time but Apple can't.

Are you also claiming there were no advancements in GPU's.   That the D-700 is equivalent to what HP and Dell offer in their workstations.  You know like the Nvidia Quadro line or even the low priced 1080 GTX.   Again I think you need to do some more investigating to see how behind Apple is on this.

Actually I was just saying why post #77 wasn't the answer: it's not Apple's style to solve the problem by putting more of the same cores in a larger case. They rarely go bigger unless there's a good reason.  

But reading your points it's like you've never read a single thing about the way Apple designs its machines. Yes, I'm sure that chips will work in Dell and HP machines but then I've never had a Dell or HP machine last half as long as an Apple box, and the reason I imagine, is that Apple takes a lot more care of how the put their gear together. The components they use aren't the most powerful, or the most up to date, but they work within the ridiculously close tolerances that they set for the machines they build. Just because an upgraded chip will work in a Dell case, doesn't mean it'll work in Apple's. Now, they could put them in the same cases as HP and Dell (and I can imagine the whining you'd do if they did) but as I said, that isn't their style. 

But you are right, this is on Apple. They could easily build a big ugly case with loads of fans and give the whingers here could then bleat on about how ugly it is. They simply chose not to. If you disagree then buy another machine. 

I don't thing you are understanding.  The newer 22core E5v4 is a direct replacement part for the 12 core E5v2.  The case or anything else would not have to be changed what so ever.

I have been using Macs since 1984.  I have a clear understanding of how well Apple designs their machines, thats why we use them.  At the same time, I'm also not a blind follower and know when they screw up.   The 2013 MacPro design is a flawed disaster.   People that use these machines such as myself don't care what they look like or how small they are.   Removing major functionality by removing a cpu,  creating proprietary GPU's which hand cuffs the user and themselves to easily update them, and then ignoring them for years at a time is not something I am happy about.    

You can get away with this if your competitors are doing the same.  But the competition is so far ahead, its not even funny anymore.

Hilarious.

The machine's a disaster.
Apple is screwing up.
And instead of changing to another platform, you're still here whining about it.
And you call other people blind followers?

Well, let me open your eyes a little. The Mac isn't going anywhere. It is simply evolving as Apple's user base evolves. The machines get lighter because that's what Apple's evolving user base wants. The next version won't have ten free slots and it won't have ten free drive bays. It will small, fast and quiet, because it will be designed for use in a small open plan office, not a garage.

It will not be the machine for you. Apple will not build a machine for you ever again because you are unable to adapt to the evolving market. You are the previous generation of professionals. Apple is chasing the next generation who they will eventually dump and focus on the generation after that. The market is the same: the affluent professional, the only thing that changes is the people in it and the type of devices they prefer to use. To Apple, you are old news. 

It's clear that Apple doesn't make the kit for you, so I can only assume that your insistence on sticking with it is some sort of fashion thing. I suggest you move on. There are Windows and Linux boxes that are much more suited to your needs and many of them are very good. Apple isn't obliged to build their future around people who are not going to be around much longer, relatively speaking.

But that's okay, because the competition you were speaking about? The ones who are so far ahead that it isn't even funny? They're building the machines for you. 

Ha ha.  this one made me laugh out loud.   That was a cool storey bro.

Our company deals in high end 3D visualization.  It appears that you are right, we are old news to Apple.  We are unable to adapt to an evolving market.  In our industry the next step is incorporating VR but unfortunately the company that has been providing us with our tools the past 30 years (Apple) can't keep up with their competitors and the result is that it is causing us to fall behind of our competition.  

Changing platforms is not as easy as you think.   There is a ton of software that needs to be transitioned, there is major work flow disruption, loss of production while employees learn new systems and finally having to deal with crappy windows all day.   Regardless, As you mentioned, the onus is on me to adapt if Apple is no longer interested in this market.   The only problem is.  I am not going to base my company decisions from two dudes on the internet that sole mission in life is to be Apple kiss a$$es. 

I have no problem if Tim would come out and say "we are no longer interested in this market".  I would understand and move on.  No hard feelings.  But instead I keep being fed the lines "The Mac is important to us", "amazing pipeline ahead" , "Best road map ever".   Well this is the year.  Its either put up time or you're 100% right, the Mac is no longer for us and another Pro using customer hits the dust.