Clarus

bulk001 said:

Apple needs a creative visionary who makes their products exciting again, not just thinner. I just bought a bunch of new iPad Pros. They are nice but they are just a tablet to our staff who appreciate new tools but were “meh, thanks” and went back to work. One person hasn’t even gotten around to opening the box yet. The AS thing is disruptive to the chip industry but most consumers are not going to care unless their favorite piece of software stops running on it. Safari opening 100th of a second faster is not a disruption to them. @"mr lizard" Some great observations there BTW. 

There is no problem with the iPad. I used to be "meh" on it, I did not even care. But the iPad Pro and iOS 13 have changed everything. Over the last few months, my iPad usage has shot up, and I have discovered numerous ways that it augments my Mac which I use many more hours a day. I now often use my iPad together with my Mac because of the way Apple has integrated them. Today, I find the iPad immensely useful and exciting, even though I did not feel that way just 18 months ago. The problem is not in the iPad, but in how well Apple has let people know what they can do with it. I now think of myself as having one computer across three devices (Mac, iPad, iPhone). Of course, office drones who only think about computers in one traditional way will not see any of this, and go "meh".

There is one more level to this that is extremely important here.

Apple Silicon is being brought up as more evidence Tim Cook runs an unexciting Apple. But if you think about the big picture, it looks different. A company selling mainstream computers on its own CPUs is not something most computer companies could even think of attempting. Dell, Lenovo, and HP cannot start from zero and build world class, high performance, energy-efficient, tightly integrated CPU/GPU SOCs.

So why can Apple do it? Because of that one thing a lot of people continue to dismiss: The iPad.

Tim Cook has been running Apple throughout the years when Apple decided to design its own A series SOC for the iPhone and iPad.
Over those Tim Cook years, that A-series SOC has become both extremely well tailored to Apple's specific needs, and performs very well and efficiently compared to the competition.
Apple has been able to quietly work on the Ax SOC over the necessary number of years to grow, refine, and mature it into what it needs to be. They did this using the iPhone and iPad as the test beds. And they have pushed that SOC so far that we were able to complain that iOS was not taking full advantage of the power of iPad hardware.

Now we come to Macs on Apple Silicon. Every previous time Apple switched CPUs, it was simply switching suppliers. This time, they are switching to an SOC that is their own, completely tailored to their needs. The only reason they have it nearly ready is because under Tim Cook's watch they had all those years to mature the silicon using the iPhone and iPad. And now it comes right at the time when Intel is letting them down the most, when Apple needs an alternative the most.

Personally I think that Tim Cook playing the long game, over many years, investing many billions of dollars, meticulously setting up the company for a massive payoff available to no other competitors, is quite exciting.

(Especially as a shareholder, watching my AAPL share value multiply 15x.)

SpamSandwich said:

cecil4444 said:

Tim is an all-around better CEO than Steve. Steve was unmatched in his abilities as a visionary and product marketer, but Tim has taken Apple to new heights, and infused the company with greater spirit, purpose, and humanity. I can’t imagine Apple would be pushing the environmental and humanitarian efforts it does today without Tim. He may always be consigned to Steve’s shadow but in countless ways Tim is the better man and CEO.

Businesses exist to make a profit. In Apple’s case, they make great products in order to generate those sales. “Greater spirit, purpose and humanity” would be signs a CEO is confused about the purpose of their company.

No, you have it backwards. While the purpose of a company is to make a profit, there is no rule that says it must be limited to that.

Let's put your self-limiting attitude to the test. Does Apple deserve to aspire to "Greater spirit, purpose and humanity"? Logically we must apply the master test: Can we show that this aspiration is hurting the ability of Apple to make a profit? The answer is...

Apple is one of the most profitable companies, if not the most profitable company, in the history of the planet.

Not only has Apple completely protected its ability to make a profit, heck...given that spectacular record of fulfilling the purpose of the company, it would be reasonable to flip your whole question around and ask ourselves, is aspiring to a more comprehensive scope than merely profit, a sign that a company has the potential to be more profitable?

Elon Musk does not limit this scope to profits either. What kinds of companies would he start if he did? Certainly more of a "sure thing" type of company, like marking up commodities made in China, or selling easy-to-overprice products into a broken health care system. Certainly not electric cars and space ships! That is why your approach is so dangerous to progress.

Andrew_OSU said:

phred said:

What are the transfer speeds of the drives? Will they work with other ipads, such as mini 5?       

We have all the transfer speeds listed in the article. And they may work with different iPads using a Lightning to USB adapter. 

It's worse than that. The article says "For those who are looking for more, there is also the Glyph Atom SSD Pro. This newer version of this drive has 2800 megabytes per second read speeds and 2600 megabytes per second write speeds." Now hold on here...those speeds are twice what is possible on an iPad Pro, if I'm right that the iPad Pro supports 10Gb/sec USB 3.2 Gen 2. Sure enough, I looked up the Glyph Atom Pro and it is Thunderbolt 3 only. You can use it on a Mac, but this article is about iPads.

This same mistake was made by commenter Seanismorris above, recommending a Samsung X5 which is Thunderbolt-only, good luck with that on your iPad...

It's pretty clear how the transfer rates break down in the article. Any drive around 500MB/sec is limited by SATA, any drive around 1000MB/sec is NVMe limited to the 10Gb/sec of USB 3.2 Gen 2, and any drive well above 1000GB/sec is NVMe using Thunderbolt 3 and not appropriate to mention in this article.

I am also disappointed that the article didn't involve real-world tests, since actual results often vary from what the manufacturer claims. And if they had actually been tested, it would have been more obvious that a drive mentioned simply wouldn't work with an iPad.

Incidentally, the one I bought is an Oyen Digital Helix Dura, a long slim NVMe USB-C drive not mentioned in the article. In tests it does about 925MB/sec for both read and write. But with all these drives, real world speeds are somewhat lower due to overhead.

All in all I agree with Marc G that the article demonstrates technical and editorial sloppiness.

dysamoria said:

These things are still ludicrously expensive, over the top for some uses, and insufficient for others. It’s like this category of product is impossible to get right and no one cares to make it affordable. Yet, Apple has created this market by dropping all the ports on MacBooks and not saving us any expense while doing so.

Dropping ports did not create these docks, because they were not technically practical with the limited ports (yes I said that) available on old Macs. What created the market for these docks was the alternate mode capability of USB-C and Thunderbolt 3 ports. That capability, and support for higher bandwidth and power levels made possible the single cable from laptop to everything (power, wired network, displays, etc.) solution that I currently enjoy every single day with my OWC TB3 dock. Only one cable to plug or unplug when I need to run. And since the dock supplies power, my Apple adapter was freed up to stay in my laptop bag.

If Apple equipped Mac laptops with the typical number of ports they used to, or still found on PC laptops, it would not have been enough. The 13 ports on my hub - most of which are in use - will not all fit on a laptop. I probably would have bought one anyway.

I cannot dispute that they are very expensive, which definitely hurts when you're already paying over $2000 for a laptop. But my hub handles so many peripherals for me rock solid all day long, and the convenience of one-cable connect/disconnect is so valuable, that after a year of use I think it's proven its worth. Especially if it works for another 2-4 years. Offloading all those ports helped me downsize to the 13" for better portability when mobile. I do have a small USB-C hub in my laptop bag too, of course, for times when I need it.

Pylons said:

Also I wish someone would put faster than 1 GbE in these.

Someone does. You will find 10GbE in the OWC (Macsales) Thunderbolt 3 Pro dock. If you look up the specs, you have to be looking at the Pro dock, the non-Pro is regular old 1GigE. Of course, it's even more ridiculously priced...

jmulchino said:

Well, good for you Fastasleep. I’ve heard this lame rationalization before and don’t get it. ‘Oh, I only pay x amount per month and it is so worth it” Most freelancers I know are an independent lot and when there was no alternative, chafed at renting software. At the end of a five years you’ll have paid $3K plus! What a bargain!

Two reasons that doesn't hold up.

One, I was recently reading a discussion thread for a comparison between a MacBook Pro and PC gaming laptop. The Mac costs twice as much but holds up well in most cases except the GPU, where the PC kills the Mac. The review said the PC was clearly superior if you were a gamer, but the Mac was a better all-around laptop if you needed it for productivity. In the comment thread, some PC users are aghast at the "Apple tax." "Why would you pay twice as much?" or "$2000 for a laptop are you CRAZY??"And I had to chuckle, because on the one hand I was watching people say that paying $2000 instead of $1000 was insane, I get that. But the real argument they were making was that it was a better value to spend $1000 to play games that are only a drain on your time and money, than to spend $2000 to do jobs that help you make tens of thousands of dollars a year over the next 3-6 years. I mean come on!

Two, the same applies here. First, I do not like subscription software, let's get that out of the way. Suppose someone pays $10 a month for the Adobe CC Photo Plan with Photoshop and Lightroom, and this is supposed to be some kind of rapacious crime against humanity. But I subscribe to Netflix, which is currently charging me more, $13/mo,  just for entertainment. (And I'm thinking of dropping it.) Or I could listen to Spotify or Apple Music for $10/mo. Now what is the sense in that? People don't bat an eye to pay $10/mo for just music, or $13/mo for just movies. But which one of those is going to help me make thousands of dollars a month? Hint: Not Netflix, Spotify, or Apple Music, which are all pure consumption. $10/mo for Adobe is for generating tens of thousands of dollars a year, and it costs less than Netflix.

That is why your comment is questionable. The argument you are making, that a relatively high expense that generates many times its price in income is not justified, is exactly the same argument used against Mac users for paying such high prices for the Macs that run our businesses. As Mac users, we know that line of reasoning is not true.

Now, if someone tells me they are not a professional, then I would most definitely not steer them to Adobe, it is not worth it because there is a wealth of creative tools on the Mac that are more than suitable for non-professionals, especially for photography. But for a professional, even the $50 all apps CC plan holds up, because $50 a month should not be the difference between eating or not eating for anyone remotely competent at running their business. If $50/mo is a problem that indicates there are much bigger problems with the business than the cost of the CC subscription, and those need to be resolved Adobe or not.