ApplePoor

Great over view even for an old timer.

As always happens just past the two week return window, Apple drops a surprise (well maybe already guessed but the drop date was unknown). Now the buyer's remorse can kick in. 

What is missing in this great informative effort above is the gut busting bomb shell of the Apple trade in value the following model year. For Example, my over $7,000 M1 Ultra (128GB and 8TB SSD) was worth $1,250 in trade in on a M2 Ultra Mac Studio in less than a year. That level of depreciation is definitely a killer of Upgrade-itis.

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.

I used my 2012 Trash Can Mac Pro until the M1 Ultra came. out. The big difference was I was able to upgrade both the SSD storage and memory capacity with products from OWC that kept it current and doing the job well.

Today's M series gear gives the new owner a snapshot of the new product lineup that can NOT be changed when it crosses the threshold of the home or office door. So one feels compelled at these high prices to max out the specs so the new gear can run the next five or six years of MacOS and production software upgrades.

Keep summaries like this coming because the new folks need a clear concise analysis which is not forth coming at theApple Store.   

One will often see a little box perched high on a road side (including interstates) pole aimed down at the traffic. It reads newer vehicles ID as the vehicle passes by and transmits the information to wherever or whoever..

I have created the new 27" iMac for both me and one of my kids: Studio Display with a 12 South shelf with a Mac mini residing on the shelf. The kids got my M2 Pro Mac mini (32GB ram, 10 Gb ethernet and 2TB SSD) while mine had a M4 Max Mini (64GB,10Gb ethernet and 8TB SSD). Both Stidio Displays were ordered with nano upgrade.

Advantage over my real 27 iMacs is either part of the new setup could be replaced without tossing out the other part too.

To cover their costs to create and get the operational M3 Ultra, they will need to make a lot of them. As outsiders, we have zero clues how many of the M3 Ultra Mac Studios and what configurations might be going into Apple's AI farm. When we aerial photos of their building show that they cover dozens of acres, that could be lots of Mac Studios, perhaps in more plebeian garb with just the ports needed in there computer farm(s).

A few thousand individual unit sales will be some frosting around a candle but the cake I bet requires many thousands to cover costs even if being used in house.

My M1 Ultra Mac Studio (128 GB ram and 8TB SSD) with two Studio Displays mounted on the wall does what I need to do. I am not doing re-entry calculations of the satellites or space debris so there is plenty of compute power for years to come.

It will be interesting to see the single core speed of the M3 Ultra and see if it lines up with the other M3 models single core speed (like in the M1 and M2 models). The M4 series support Thunderbolt 5 but maybe they tweaked the M3 Ultra to support that feature.

My 16" M4 Max Mac Book Pro (128GB RaM and 8TB SSD) equals/ or slightly exceeds the power of my Studio but in a laptop. Really amazing stuff.