Marvin

neoncat said:

No way, Apple. Fool me once, twice, too many times. I hope publishers listen and avoid the bait and switch yet again. 

All the problems in the past were for good reasons. The major ones were switching to OS X, switching to Intel x86, deprecating OpenGL for Metal, deprecating 32-bit support and switching to Apple Silicon ARM. These all caused breaking changes for software over the years.

Apple is now on its forever platform ARM64 across their whole hardware lineup. There is no reason for a breaking change after this, they control their own hardware, their own graphics API and there's no reason to go above 64-bit (16 Exabytes RAM limit).

Times are also different now. Most of these games are built on Unreal Engine, some on Unity so they are already taken care of. Apple has been helping build Metal renderers for the other engines. That alone shows a strong commitment to the industry as well as building a DirectX 12 emulator. People tried for years to build DX12 support and Apple released a near perfect implementation that supports hundreds of games, even really high-end ones:



iOS is Apple's big platform for gaming and now the hardware can run AAA titles.

AMD recently released a cross-platform open-source global illumination solution as part of FidelityFX, some of which MetalFX is using:

https://wccftech.com/amd-fidelityfx-brixelizer-gi-is-a-compute-based-dynamic-global-illumination-solution-available-now-in-sdk-1-1/
https://gpuopen.com/fidelityfx-brixelizer/

If Apple integrates frame-generation from FSR3 and a fast global illumination system, their mobile hardware will become competitive with the current highest consoles.

The hardest part left is the game price and convincing players to regularly buy at a high price on Apple platforms, especially older games. Having support for dozens of modern titles is a good start and being able to run on both iOS and Mac will be a huge plus for them.

One thing that would help is wrapping older individual games with the compatibility layers and selling them as separate units. That would support over 500 games overnight and would immediately give the developers revenue. 500 games x $20 x 500,000 Mac buyers = $5b. If they can run on iOS, the unit volume would be even higher.

It's justified being cautious given the history but I think this is the start of their real commitment to a stable gaming platform that they will be able to support long-term and it's nice to see them marketing it.

StrangeDays said:

elijahg said:

If it was £999 I’d be tempted. But for £3500 there is not a chance. Especially since it’s first generation and much like every other VR device, doesn't really have much of a purpose. Nor does it have many apps. I think Apple is going to struggle to find devs who will write for it because they know the market is minuscule. That said it took a while for the iPhone to take off, but then it was 1/4 of the price.

Counterpoint: it's the half the price of the original Macintosh (corrected for inflation). Which had extremely limited capabilities and use cases. See how that turned out. Then repeat for iPhone, and iPad, and I can't think of a reason why this would be different. Other than those who just like complaining I guess. 

The original Mac almost bankrupted Apple, it took 3 years to sell 1m units:

https://www.cultofmac.com/479113/today-apple-history-first-100-days-mac-roaring-success/

Steve Jobs left Apple because of this, he wanted to lower the price to help improve sales and they couldn't or they'd make a loss:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/randalllane/2013/09/09/john-sculley-just-gave-his-most-detailed-account-ever-of-how-steve-jobs-got-fired-from-apple/

"“Steve went into a deep depression,” Sculley said. As a result, “Steve came to me and he said, ‘I want to drop the price of the Macintosh and I want to move the advertising, shift a large portion of it away from the Apple 2 over to the Mac.”
The successful Mac was the iMac, which launched at $1299 ($2449 adjusted for inflation), which they got down to $799 ($1500 inflation adjusted) the following year:

https://www.theverge.com/23830432/imac-twenty-five-years-ago-saved-apple

The most successful companies in the world are mostly made up of mass-market businesses - retail (food, clothing, shopping), health, transport, banking, insurance, telecommunication, utilities and personal computing.

Apple's success doesn't come from luxury but mass-market luxury. The iPhone is a premium product but it starts at $429 and ASP is under $1000. The Mac ASP is around $1300.

They sell Macs over $3000 but it's easy to see from the revenue that this represents < 5% of their Mac sales and the Mac represents < 10% of their total sales. Sales over $3000 are < 0.5% of their customer base.

If Apple wants this product to become a platform, it needs a lower entry price and this will happen when the manufacturing costs come down but a more cost-effective design would reach it faster. They build a premium iPad Pro with M4 that sells for $999, they can build a premium headset that sells for under $2000. Apple would be able to sell 5 million+ headsets per year at $1500, when the display manufacturing capacity is there.

9secondkox2 said:

My 2016 MBP and 2015 iMac still do everything with aplomb. 8 and 9 years. 

Been holding off for a new large iMac and faster MBP. 

But don’t know how much longer I want to hold out. There’s new stuff that only works with AS and I’m getting antsy. 

Maybe worth waiting until October for the M4 MBPs as they use ARMv9 but any of the Max chips will be 5-10x faster than 2015-2016 models and it's not just that they run faster, they do it like an iPad, ice cold most of the time. Real world battery life is 3-5x too.

They have refurbs of the M3 ones, which doesn't feel so bad buying if M4 comes out in October because it's 15% off.

https://www.apple.com/shop/product/G1AG0LL/A

I doubt a large iMac will be out for a while, if ever. The display cost for a 32" 6K panel won't be low enough for them to make one, 27" Studio IPS display is $1600. Easiest route to go would be Studio or mini + OLED display (or the Studio Display but OLED has better color and HDR). Apple is selling so many Studio Macs that it replaces the larger iMacs at that price point.

32" 4K OLED = $1310 https://www.amazon.com/LG-%E2%80%8E32GS95UE-Ultragear-DisplayHDR-DisplayPort/dp/B0CV1Y7NLT
An M2 Max Studio 32GB/1TB is $1800 https://www.apple.com/shop/refurbished/mac/mac-studio

I doubt Studio models will be updated in October, more likely March 2025 or later but a MBP can be used with a display until the Studio is updated.

Mork said:

Must be for certain phones, my 13 pro max doesn’t show this.

Only for iPhones with adaptive true-tone flash:

https://appleinsider.com/articles/22/09/20/how-iphone-14-pro-adaptive-true-tone-flash-creates-perfect-light-for-your-photos

Pro models from iPhone 14: 14 Pro/Max, 15 Pro/Max.

macmaniac said:

Thanks for your response, Marvin. I have a 13 inch. In safe mode it was OK but it came back upon next normal boot-up. It stops when display is rotated or cursor is moved, then returns.

Safe mode disables the GPU. Since it's ok in safe mode, that would suggest the GPU over the display connection but there are a few videos about the 2017 model to do with the display cable and the description sounds similar to this:



There was a repair program for the issue but this has ended:

https://www.ifixit.com/News/16943/macbook-pro-flexgate-repair-program

Getting it repaired at a store would be an option but there are a couple of alternatives. One would be to use an external display. If it needs to be portable, there are portable displays:

https://www.amazon.com/Intehill-Portable-13-3-inch-Response-External/dp/B0C65SJ1NZ
https://www.amazon.com/VILVA-Portable-Monitor-Laptop-Portable-Speakers/dp/B0BTSFVMLV

A new laptop would be best, the new Apple Silicon ones are much better than the Intel ones. A brand new Macbook Air 13" 16GB/512GB would be $1399-1499 but some old refurbs are less:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/235640617007 (M1 $695)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/285848592697 (M1 $769)
https://www.ebay.com/itm/226170782516 (M1 $879)

The model you have can be replaced for under $400 but these models have the same defects with the cables so it would be best getting a newer model:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/256481877767
https://www.ebay.com/itm/186514879745