EsquireCats

Talking about the current US administration is irrelevant.

Tim Cook announced in 2012 Apple's intention to focus additional investment in the USA, at the time that was a $100M contribution, since then there has been an ongoing trend of increasing investment in US production and US-based suppliers. The release of the 2013 mac pro indicates that Apple's investment plans started earlier before the 2012 announcement.

The narrative that Apple would close their US operations is utterly garbage talk. More inane is the idea that the current administration were somehow keeping them open.
First it would be a reversal of a multi-year strategy, it would be throwing away investment capital for no reason, it would reduce Apple's ability to deal with change (such as the surprise approach to China undertaken by the current administration), and reduce Apple's ability to manufacture over a period where their computer sales have been increasing. That narrative also relies on the idea that China has unlimited production capacity, they don't - rather the most prudent approach would be for Apple to further diversify their supply chain (SURPRISE, this is what they've been doing for several years now and at significant cost mind you.)

iphonefiver said:

The following $2905 workstation is equivalent to the $5999 Mac Pro both in terms of performance and in terms of using all workstation-class components:

$460 - Supermicro MBD-X11SPI-TF-O motherboard
$749 - Xeon W-3223
$100 - Noctua NH-U12S DX-3647 CPU cooler
$200 - 32 GB DDR4 2666 ECC RAM
$525 - AMD Radeon Pro WX 7100 8GB
$280 - Dune Pro case with a cheese grater
$160 - Samsung 970 Pro NVMe SSD 512GB
$231 - Seasonic Prime Ultra 850W 80+ Titanium PSU
$200 - Windows 10 Pro
--------------------
$2,905

That is not "just a $400 i9 processor jammed in a machine with a plain-as-day Northbridge, a few PCI-E slots, and a couple of I/O options". It is a bona fide workstation, with the same CPU, server-grade ECC RAM, workstation GPU that slightly outdoes the one in the Mac, etc.

Granted, the article said that build-your-own rigs could come in less expensive, but the authors seemed to imply that such builds would not really be comparable to a Mac Pro because they are made from consumer-grade parts. In any case, there's the equivalent+ custom workstation.

I think I've heard this argument for every pro mac computer since the G4. This point of view always relies on the reductionist argument that the computer is a pile of parts from a bunch of manufacturers. that the machine just comes into existence by designing and testing itself. (Oh and let's hope the reader ignores all the missed parts and Apple specific technologies included.)

It's a bit like saying your DIY jet is the same thing as Boeing's if you pop over to Pratt & Whitney and buy all the same parts.

marcia funebre said:

Finally a new professional workstation. Looking forward to that. About the screen I have to say that is the dumbest thing in the universe. Only 32" at 6k? Way too small! With 6k I'd expect 55" or more. Otherwise you'll need a microscope to work!

It's actually not the dumbest thing in the world. It's a ~220ppi display, that's as large as you're going to get for 6k and that pixel density is both meaningful and in my opinion a necessity for current era workstations.

Apple's seem to agree, their workstations are now all at ~220ppi. When you're looking for 49" display, then you're going to be getting pixel densities of ~110 ppi and lower, i.e. about the same as Apple's Cinema displays from 10 years ago. They're frustrating to work on with visible pixels, and it's utterly useless if you're developing any kind of content for modern portable devices which have pixel densities in excess of ~250 ppi.

It's also important that it's a flat display and not a curved one, but that's a whole other discussion.

I think Apple are careful with how they stock the Apple watch model range, for example I notice Hermes and Edition models aren't available in every country.

I’m actually amazed by how good the games are on Apple Arcade. I’m not much of a gamer and I’ve already eaten my way through a handful like a nerdy version of the hungry hungry caterpillar.
To be honest, from the advertising, I was expecting the Apple Arcade to be a lot of me-too versions of already popular games. Instead there are absolutely great items in there, so many are entirely original takes on the various genres, whoever curated it knows their stuff.

As a service it’s so much more valuable than certain comparable services, which are merely just access to a bunch of old titles.