cgWerks

rain22 said:
... then Bill Gates had to step in and infuse them with cash to keep them afloat. ...

Why in the world does this myth keep getting propagated? Do you realize how much a 'drop in the bucket' Microsoft's measly investment (yes, the bought stock) was in the grand scheme? How much cash Apple had on hand? etc.

As Designr explained, it was a symbolic gesture. Yes, I'm sure Apple would have eventually been in trouble had they not turned things around, and the whole deal with Microsoft was crucial (and Microsoft gained as much or more than Apple in the deal!), but it had little to do with that investment in terms of $.

Jeff_in_TX said:
Yes those are good points...I do think there is plenty of room in the market for differentiation, despite it being mature these days.  The iOS ecosystem is definitely sticky and has some very strong advantages for purchasers of the devices.  I think the high price point of the iPhone may stand in the way, but if Apple gets aggressive, especially with trade-ins, they can keep chugging along.

I think they are just testing to see how far they can push it. Most businesses do that with their pricing. However, it is also a bit risky at some point. They can always drop them again, but that becomes difficult because of the Wall Street idiocy and impact on their brand image. (And, I don't think Tim's whole 'they cost more because we're putting more tech into them' is fooling too many people.)

designr said:

It's interesting, with all of the talk of chasing after profitability vs. market share and comparisons to the automobile market (likening Apple to BMW or Mercedes), that the most consistently profitable (and one of the largest) automobile company in the world is Toyota which provides (profitable) products across the range of prices (including their Lexus luxury division).
...
I'm not saying Apple has to pursue such a strategy. It's perfectly legitimate to pursue only the high end. But that strategy has risks and trade-offs of its own. In a business where switching (away) friction is low, it may carry greater risks than imagined at first glance.

Great post and I agree. The odd thing about Apple is that they aren't just pursuing the high end with a lot of their products, while others segments are aimed squarely at that high end. So, maybe there is some of what you're saying already going on.

Also, the key to Toyota has mainly been their long lasting nature vs cost ratio. They aren't (at least most of the line) particularly luxury or exciting, but most people just want a reliable vehicle. BMW is about the driving experience and luxury (and image)** than what the Toyota crowd is after, even if they could afford it.

Apple has those aspects as well, at least traditionally. A lot of Apple owners of the past bought them less because they were luxury items, or high-end, but because of the ease of use and reliability. The 'fashion brand' thing is rather recent. At the same time, iPhones and iPads have sold to the average consumer the way BMWs haven't. So, it's kind of an odd blend.

** (That said, there are some interesting charts Consumer Report produced over the years of the range of brand reliability - where each brand had a bar that covered the range of models and their reliability for particular years. Some years, Audi and BMWs most reliable models topped Toyota and Honda's most reliable models. Of course, the bottom end of the bars was lower than Toyota's lowest end... so Toyota is more consistently good. But, the upshot, is that if you bought the right model of Audi or BMW in those years, they statistically were more reliable than the best from Toyota/Honda. That's something most people don't realize.)

IMO, the main problem is being a public company and the whole push for constant growth. A company could do just fine making a substantial profit year after year. The push, though, to keep increasing, increasing, increasing at an alarming pace can really mess up a company.

I'm holding out for a new SE... just saying.

That said, my SE seems to be doing just fine for now. So, I'm not in any hurry.

camc said:

The question is: will this iMac overheat in a non-conditioned office running Adobe software? The mid-2015 MacBook Pro I'm currently on starts making noisy games with its fans as soon as Acrobat opens. In summer days it overheats on a regular basis, becoming slower and slower...
I'm stuck with a couple of these machines because I can't figure out if a brand new iMac or a brand new MacBook Pro will do the same – any of you guys has suggestions? Should I go for an iMac Pro instead? (throwing away Adobe suite is not an option)

When I first got my i7 mini (2018), I was a bit disappointed by how easily it got noisy. So, I started experimenting. I finally settled on just turning off turbo boost most of the time, and have found the machine much more pleasant... and not all that much slower (at least for what I do). Here is the app I use to turn it off: https://www.rugarciap.com/turbo-boost-switcher-for-os-x/

Eric_WVGG said:
He's referring to Fusion-less HD-only models. By modern standards, they work so slowly that many would wonder if the computer was broken.

John Siracusa went on a pretty good rant about these. http://atp.fm/episodes/319

Yeah, while a standard HD isn't unworkable, it pretty much impacts (negatively) every aspect of the user experience except storage space. I suppose if you have to have the absolutely lowest price and most storage, then it is what it is. But, I'd buy the base SSD (or even wish they had an ATA SSD based model) and plug in some external HD storage WAY before I'd ever consider a standard HD one. At least then, you narrow down poor UI/UX to just Spotlight and file dialog boxes (as it has to spin-up the HD for some crazy reason).

Eric_WVGG said:

frank777 said:

Agreed on the port situation. Apple should have found the "courage" to go all USB3/Thunderbolt.
If a future rev can go all USB-C, add SSD standard and a T2 chip, it would be pretty much perfection.

The iMac Pro really got this right. 4 C's and 4 A's, freakin awesome.

Yeah, I'm really happy my (2018) mini has the 4 Cs and 2 As. It is really nice just to be able to plug stuff in without mucking about with dongles. I'm not against C, but until there is more C stuff around, it's handy to have some As since there is plenty of space.

tht said:
I’ll raise my hands and say I prefer bezels. Don’t understand how some people don’t have their eyes wigged out from trying to focus on the screen versus the background at the edge of the screen, especially in high contrast backgrounds. My work monitor is not along a wow, and when I had my monitor by the window, yowsers the brightness outside sometimes.

There needs to be some bezel, and while it may look cool and all if it was 3 or 4 mm thick, it makes it little harder to use for me. Heck, On the iPhone, I definitely prefer the sharper edges of the 4 to 5S models over the rounded edges of recent vintage. Maybe 10 to 15 mm bezels would work for me.

Good point, and mostly the same here. Although, even w/ bezel, I can't stand sitting by a window when it's sunny outside or that kind of thing (need some kind of blinds). The bezel certainly helps, though. And, I find the tiny/no bezel stuff on phones/tablets to be a major pain. If you put them in a case, then doing the gestures is hard to impossible.

sflocal said:
What other machine - Mac or Wintel - with decent to big CPU's will run in a non-AC room without the fans eventually kicking in?

True, though how much they run, how loudly, and how performance/longevity is impacted greatly varies.
While the climate I'm at doesn't generally run too hot, my machine was making noise with even a slight load until I turned turbo boost off. At the same time, my eGPU is silent, even under 100% load. I understand the cylinder Mac Pro is silent too under load.

I think the issue here, is that Apple could have redesigned it (as they've already done the work on the iMac Pro) to be silent or much more quiet with these lower-power internals (compared to the iMac Pro).... or, that in general, Apple seems to be favoring tiny to something that runs reasonably quiet/cool.

escargot said:
May I ask what App you are using for doing the HEVC encoding?  FCP X?  Which six core i7 and on which computer are you comparing it to, the one that it is several times faster than?

ScreenFlow and Handbrake so far.
I'm comparing it to using the i7 on my 2018 Mac mini with h.264 (vs. h.265 which uses the T2). So, the same computer, just exported using different methods.

Note, I'm not a video expert, so I've just tried to match what I think is similar quality settings. But, the difference is so obvious, that it doesn't really matter. I can double the quality settings on the h.265 export, and it is still way, way faster. (ex: just making it up for discussion... say the h.264 would take an hour to export, the h.265 might take 15 minutes and if I double the quality, then it might take 17 minutes) I'm also only working with 1080p output (sometimes higher input), so YMMV, but I think the difference is even more profound working with 4k from what I've read.

escargot said:
At least in the previous Gen (2017), the fusion drives maxed out around 2000 MBps read and 750 MBps writes. The SSDs could regularly get about 3000 MBps reads and 2000 MBps writes. So yes the SSDs are a lot faster, and consistently faster. But the fusion drives are no slouch either.

I think my concern is more that the Fusion Drive seems to be a kind of interim odd-duck solution that even Apple has been a bit slow in properly supporting. But, otherwise, it kind of solves the problem of speed/storage size for the average user.

bshank said:
I’ve also read that the iMac has Quick Sync which is better for H.264, a feature iMac Pro doesn’t have. If true it may depend on what type of file, H.264 or H.265 one is using

Hmm, that's interesting. My Mac mini (2018) should have that too, but the h.265 is considerably faster (which, I think uses the T2). I'm not sure how slow it would be without either (assuming I'm using Quick Sync).

The trick is picking the right export, though. It is more straight forward in ScreenFlow. It was just recently added to Handbrake, and isn't entirely clear how to do it (you have to setup the video for H.265 (VideoToolbox) ).

As I mentioned on the other new iMac article...

If you do video encoding work, carefully consider that these don't have the T2 chip (where as the mini or MBP do). I didn't care much about the T2 when I bought my 2018 mini, but now I do! The HEVC/h.265 encoding is several times faster than even the six-core i7, AND it keeps things quiet as an added bonus.

If that matters to you... I'd save up for the cheapest iMac Pro, or wait until a future iMac, or get a mini/MBP, etc.