danvm

lkrupp said:

ireland said:

Anyone like to guesstimate what a fully speced-out new Mac Pro with display will cost?

$50K at least. The 28 core Xenon CPU is $15,000.00 just by itself on Amazon. Pixar, Lucasfilm, Industrial Light and Magic and others will be buying truckloads of these machines. 

mdriftmeyer said:

cynegils said:

Lets hope that one of those lessons is not "Pricing will start at cost X eleventybillion!"

When Intel charges $15k for the 28 core Xeon what do you expect? Just one more reason Apple will sooner-rather-than-later ditch Intel for AMD.

And no, they aren't going ARM people. Just like they aren't building a competing GPGPU--the Afterburner is that secret GPU project from Florida.

racerhomie3 said:

GeorgeBMac said:

StrangeDays said:

Johan42 said:

Diminishing returns is here. Apple’s planned obsolescence as well. Who will prevail? The customer who has no sense will.

You’re high. Apple devices have the longest lifespan in the business — both in official support terms (iOS), and in real world useful lifespan. My primary desktop is a 2011 iMac. I have an iphone 4s that was used as a primary device by a family member until a year or two ago and now is a backup device. What other brand has the same support and lifespan longevity? 

My Lenovo Thinkpad T60P laptop is over 12 years old and runs like it was new -- but with a modern OS and I'm thinking swapping its main harddrive for an SSD.  How does Apple have the "longest lifespan" ?

Same here buddy. My MacBook is from late 2008. It is 11 years old, running smoothly , and it does so looking 5 times better than your machine.

StrangeDays said:

Johan42 said:

Diminishing returns is here. Apple’s planned obsolescence as well. Who will prevail? The customer who has no sense will.

You’re high. Apple devices have the longest lifespan in the business — both in official support terms (iOS), and in real world useful lifespan. My primary desktop is a 2011 iMac. I have an iphone 4s that was used as a primary device by a family member until a year or two ago and now is a backup device. What other brand has the same support and lifespan longevity? 

StrangeDays said:

KITA said:

sacto joe said:

robbyx said:

MacPro said:

robbyx said:

genovelle said:

wood1208 said:

I doubt it. If Apple wants to make a sizable dent and expand MAC user base, eco-system than keep expanding bottom user base. Offer GoTo systems for bottom huge user base and rest to professionals,enterprises,

Sizable market share doesn’t make any money. The companies who are selling those computers are not making profit on them. Profit means you can continue to develop new things while others suffer or die. 

On the other hand, you need marketshare to attract third party developers, something Apple has done quite well on iOS, but never particularly well on macOS.  The Mac is withering on the vine at Apple anyway. They’re going to keep it alive until iOS can replace it, but it’s clear that computers, at least in the traditional desktop sense of the word, haven’t been Apple’s passion for a while now.

There are quite a few Macs out there and unlike the buyers of low-end PCs, they do have the ability to buy lots of stuff.  Don't get me wrong there are great high-end PCs out there from the likes of Dell but the vast majority are low-end crap.

When I read comments like this, I just sort of marvel at how Apple fans have changed over the years.  It never used to be about which company was the most profitable or which users did or did not have the means to buy things (in other words, naked classism).  It was always about which platform was better.

Today Apple fans routinely point out how Apple takes the lion's share of profit in a market or how buyers of low-end, non-Apple products are cheap and don't spend any money, or can't (because they are poor and some cheap low-end Android or crap PC is the best they can do).  And we wonder why so many non-Apple fans think so poorly of Apple fans...

When it comes to developer support, the reason we don't see more developers embrace the Mac is marketshare.  Mac marketshare has more or less climbed as high as it's going to climb as long as Apple stays the course.  Apple might very well be the fourth or fifth largest computer manufacturer, but when it comes to total marketshare, they are a drop in the bucket compared to Windows.  So most developers don't care - and never will care - about the Mac.

While Apple massively gouges its customers with a 40% profit margin, something Apple fans on these forums routinely celebrate (which I've always found very strange considering that we're the ones being gouged!), Dell and others sell you better hardware at sometimes half the price.  There's a thriving third party software market for Windows.  Those low-end PC customers must be buying lots of third party software, contrary to your suggestion, or the vast majority of developers wouldn't be supporting Windows.  If all the money was in Mac development, we'd be spoiled for choice in the Mac world.  Unfortunately, the opposite is true.  So I think you're pretty much flat wrong that low-end PCs don't translate into third party software sales.

With a ~40% profit margin and more cash in the bank than most governments, Apple could compete on price if they wanted to.  Like I said earlier, and have said many times before, I don't believe that Apple is particularly invested in the Mac these days.  Apple is clearly much more enthusiastic about iOS than macOS.  If Apple really wanted to grow Mac marketshare, there are many approaches it could take.  Instead, the Mac withers on the vine, with the occasional underwhelming, and increasingly overpriced, update for each model.  

Ignore the reality that Microsoft uses clone makers to generate its cheap ash hardware and Apple uses its software to give great advantage to Apple product owners.

Never admit that Microsoft can’t even begin to accomplish the integration between hardware and software that Apple does.

Ignore the reality that Apple products last longer and perform better for longer than most PC products.

The Windows ecosystem is Microsoft's software advantage. It's hard to use a Mac computer when it can't do nearly as much. There's a reason Apple is essentially non-existent in the workstation market, and it's not just their lack of hardware.

Hololens, the leading AR system, is just one example of Microsoft raising the bar on hardware and software integration.

You’re high. Macs can do as much as Windows machines and more, being a POSIX certified system. Plus I ran run both OSes on a Mac.

Hololens? That’s your  example of MS killing it? HOLOLENS!? lol...good one.