cgWerks

AppleInsider said:

It's possible, though not certain, that the SCOTUS ruling could eventually lead to the floodgates opening on new, sports gambling-related apps in the App Store.

Wow, is this a leap!!!

macxpress said:

boltsfan17 said:

I'm sure Apple will be blamed in the future for people gambling away their money. 

Actually, it'll be Tim's fault...

Well, look who's here stirring the pot...

commentzilla said:
If you think they are going to sell a "headless" pro machine for $1200 when an iPhone goes for $1000 you are high. That headless dream has been floating for decades and will never happen. They are not going to undercut their MacBook Pros and iMacs with their Pro iMac with a headless machine.

$3000 will be the starting point pre-configured on the very low end (gimped to consumer processors, RAM and a single GPU), probably $5000 for decent machine and up to $10k or $15k on the top side. You can also bet it will be high-end CPUs with ECC ram and a mid-to-high level GPU, etc, at a minimum. When Apple means pro, they will mean pro, as in aiming for the high margin market of professionals making commercial films and TV, industrial designers (cars, airplanes, rockets), etc,. We're talking about people who will sink $5000 into a machine like they would drop $500 on dinner without a thought.

The problem is more that they need a prosumer machine, AND a pro machine. There is a massive gap in the product line where they have lower end machines for the masses and then the iMac Pro and Mac Pro. There's nothing in the middle except iMacs and MacBook Pros... but not everyone wants an all-in-one, and both iMacs and MacBook Pros suffer from heat issues under heavier use.

But, you're probably right that Apple doesn't give a hoot. The reason people are complaining, is that this used to not be the case. A decade ago and back, I never had an issue  finding a Mac to fit my needs (I'm prosumer to pro at times). Today, I'm struggling to figure out what to buy. Apple makes nothing for me.

macplusplus said:

cgWerks said:
Um, no. A TB2 port can't even support a single modern GPU at full speed. It's a fraction of the internal bus capacity.

So what? Critical components are already on the internal bus, no one says to you to put the main storage on Thunderbolt. That was a cartoonish representation of a new paradigm using as few words as possible. Have fun...

You were the one talking like the cylinder Mac Pro was perfect for the future because everything could just be put externally. And, yes, that is the way it was presented and sold. I (we're) just pointing out the problems between that marketing and reality. TB3 is *finally* able to pull this off to some extent if there are enough separate controllers/ports. It was just a pipe-dream in 2013, which is why the real pros were upset.

svencito said:
Correct. It shouldn't be hard to just switch to the lates Intel chips, unless they're all custom built for the trash can.

To me the whole thing means that I'll have to stick with my 2013 trash can and but that the 2019 model is what I need and that I can afford it.
Still, a six years renew cycle is just ridiculous. The MacMini cycle goes in the same direction. Sad!

Yea, I suppose refreshing the cylinder could take a bit of work, but either project shouldn't be that difficult. Apple just doesn't give a rip. And, updating the Mini is crazy simple.

But, as I said above, I think the big problem here is that they aren't considering the middle at all (or think the iMac suffices for everyone). They are finally addressing the pros, but in typical Apple style, it has to be a massive multi-year long project to build the 'right thing' that might not be by the time it finally gets released anyway (like the cylinder). They need to move at a bit quicker than snail-pace... like they do with the iPhone.

automaticftp1 said:
The most cost-efficient move today is to buy a used quad-core trash can (eBay "sold" average is about $1450) and the 12 core E5-2697 V2 on eBay ("sold" average is about $500), substitute the 12 core for the 4 core, and voila - you have a 12 core trash can for a fraction of the price that Apple wants for it.  

The CPUs are not peculiar to Apple - they are standard socketed Xeons.  

Thanks for the tip! I'm really close to buying a 2013, and that would make it so much nicer. My main concern, though, is how long it will be supported for OS updates (hopefully a few years yet?), and then that it's TB2 in terms of eGPU support (with Apple pulling it recently). Though the hacker community looks to have solved that for now. But I hate playing cat and mouse with that kind of thing.

DuhSesame said:

Maybe there’s finally a chance to get rid of the thermal throttling.  Intel’s x86 chips always runs higher than their TDP rating if you pushed them to the maximum level, never a friendly solution for a thinner device.

The problem is more with the other components. That's a design problem for Apple, not Intel. I'll take a thicker device with adequate cooling.

netrox said:

It's bound to happen with the incredible progress the ARM processor has gone. It's extremely efficient and blazing fast. So, it would be nice to have a huge boost in performance when we have the software recompiled for ARM.

Is it really, though, given the same work to do that we'd do with our desktops? The fastest seem to match the short-term speeds of Apple's mid-range Macs. I'm not sure I'd call that blazing fast and efficient. They are efficient given what they are designed for, but how much more efficient will they really be when it comes to an apples to apples comparison?

cropr said:

The moment we can no longer run an Intel based linux server in a VM on a Mac at a decent speed, will be the day that my company stops using Macs as development machines.  This is an absolute showstopper.  If we don't have this functionality locally on a development machine, all my developers will move to Intel machines with Linux (e.g. Dell XPS).

The question is... does Apple really care? If they can replace those sales with a higher number of sales to some other market, possibly not. Apple doesn't seem to be thinking so long-term, big-picture anymore.

Soli said:
I have to assume that Intel-based Linux VMs on Macs are statistically insignificant to Apple.

Possibly statistically insignificant on those pie-charts. However, far from insignificant in terms of big-picture impact. (whether the powers that be are thinking beyond the pie-chart, though, remains to be seen)

spacekid said:
Improve security like preventing software not sold through the App Store from running?

That's one way to do it.

tipoo said:

Hopefully they can decouple themselves from Intels blunders and delays and really distinguish themselves that way. Look at everyone pooh poohing the 16GB limit because Intel doesn't support LPDDR4, while A series chips have for a few years, yet Apple gets the blame for it. And the fully Apple GPU will be just as interesting.

Yes, a bit... but Apple's problems go far beyond Intel not advancing as some might like. I'd be perfectly happy (would would have been for years already) with a computer Apple ***COULD*** easily build using Intel chips currently available.

While there is some truth to it, it's more an excuse for Apple's failure to execute.

Interesting, I suppose. But any one of us could have come up with something like that yesterday afternoon. Yes, hopefully the teachers will do better.... but none of this seems all that groundbreaking. Maybe you did have to be there?