MacPro

jvm156 said:

Samsung is already putting a new one out? I’d be pissed if i just spent $400 on that thing. How many damn products need yearly updates?

History tells us that any product Apple is rumored to be close  to releasing, a best guess copy will be released by Samsung and or Google  long before Apple releases it, assuming they ever do.  It must be a gift for Apple's R&D team to have a test dummy out there every time.

Talking of which, now we have Apple Intelligence in macOS 15.1, has anyone found Grammarly and the new AI fighting with each other?  I suspect I need to remove my Grammarly.

entropys said:

MacPro said:

The argument that Apple computers are overpriced is a tired one.  On many occasions, I have bought a PC with quality specifications similar to a Mac (well, as close as you can get), and they cost an arm and a leg. Just because cheap and nasty PCs proliferate does not equate to overpriced Macs.

I have a Lenovo workstation (P14s) that cost more than the equivalent MBP, but I needed its particular GPU and windows for CAD software (an area where Apple is very poor).  But that is not a mainstream device, and it is annoying that I paid the big bucks for a crappy plastic machine.  

But the point is most people don’t use those workstations, and price is a factor for most people, in fact just about all people, people like me are exceptions.

Apple had some of the most efficient supply chains in the market, makes high quality kit, and it definitely has the highest margins. That margin protection means smaller market share, and it is clear the c-suite accept that, and the balance overall is high revenue. In fact it is a bit of chicken and egg. Want high quality, it will be expensive and if you want margins that means less market share. Or, if you want market share, accept lower margins.  Apple has gone for margins.

this doesn’t always work. The Mac Pro, HomePod, AirPods Max, rMB are examples of market failures as they were priced too high for what they were, or so overdesigned they lost functionality to sell in any volume. 

Sometimes that is OK for a completely amazingly high end halo device, like a Mac Pro once was over a decade ago, perhaps the iPhone pro max today. 

You should check out a good PC.  I have several Dell Precision Workstations with 192 GB RAM and dual Xeons.  They cost a fortune but are built like tanks.  Not all PCs are plastic, crap.  I would disagree that Mac Pros and HomePods are failures.  Apple sell less of the high end stuff just as Mercedes, Range Rover, Jaguar, BMW etc., do, it doesn't make the high end products failures when they sell in low volumes.  The current Mac Pro is an oddity I will grant you, it is either for Apple's internal use or made for fun.  It's the first Mac Pro I have not owned, ever, I went for the Studio M2 Ultra.  By the way, anyone who doesn't own an iPhone Pro Max is missing out on a great product, and, by the way, they sell like hot cakes.

spheric said:

Jobs actually wanted sapphire glass, but that failed despite Apple investing millions. 

It’s unlikely that Steve Jobs considered sapphire glass when he approached Corning for the iPhone in 2006. At that time, synthetic sapphire was primarily used in niche applications—like luxury watch faces, certain industrial tools, and optics where scratch resistance was critical but where brittleness and high production costs weren't major issues. While the tech industry was aware of sapphire's properties, it wasn’t widely considered viable for mass-market applications like smartphone screens.

Jobs was focused on finding a practical, durable solution for the iPhone, so he looked to Corning, whose glass products were already known for their innovation and quality. Corning’s Gorilla Glass, with its superior strength-to-cost ratio, was a much more feasible choice. Even now, synthetic sapphire is far costlier and more challenging to produce in large, thin sheets than Gorilla Glass. So, in the early 2000s, it would have been even more impractical as a display material.

Sapphire glass only began gaining interest in the smartphone industry years after the iPhone launched, as companies started to push for more scratch-resistant surfaces and explored new materials, spurred by Apple’s later interest around 2012. But back in 2006, Jobs’s decision to partner with Corning was a pragmatic one; Gorilla Glass was simply the most viable material available for a high-quality, resilient smartphone screen.

Apple currently uses sapphire glass in a few key areas across its products:

Camera Lenses: Sapphire glass is used to cover the rear camera lenses on iPhones and iPads. Its scratch-resistant properties help protect the lenses from damage, ensuring clear, high-quality photos over the device’s lifespan.

Apple Watch: Sapphire glass is standard on higher-end models of the Apple Watch, such as the Apple Watch Ultra and some stainless steel models. For these models, scratch resistance is especially important, given the device's exposure to daily wear on wrists and, often, during physical activities.

Touch ID Sensors: Sapphire glass has been used on Touch ID sensors in devices like the iPhone and iPad, as it provides durability and scratch resistance for frequent finger contact.

Apple Watch's Heart Rate Sensor: In some Apple Watch models, sapphire is used to cover the heart rate sensor on the back of the watch.

Sapphire glass works well in these areas where components are relatively small, and the primary concern is scratch resistance, not impact resistance. For larger screens, like the iPhone’s main display, Gorilla Glass remains the more practical choice due to its impact durability and cost-effectiveness in large, thin sheets.

So, Apple didn't waste its money on sapphire glass and it didn't fail, it just wasn't the success that those who hyped the stock had hoped for after rumors of iPhone screens using it.  If I recall Apple never confirmed those rumors, it was a GT Advanced Technologies that did all the talking.

programmer said:

MacPro said:

1der said:

It seems Cook’s law is then about 4 years.  It's always fun to make lots of assumptions and project into the future. In doing so I imagine in say 40 years what seemingly AI miracles could be accomplished with the machine in your hand being 1000 times as powerful 

Same here.  However, I bet your 1000-times increase is way short of the mark in terms of performance gain.

This sort of abstraction is based on a fallacy that future progress will follow the same pattern as past progress.  Moore's "Law" broke down because that no longer holds.  Until about the mid-2000s, we were rapidly and steadily taking advantage of the relatively easy scaling offered by the available EM spectrum for exposing masks.  Since that time the rate of improvement has gotten slower, much harder, and much more expensive because we've reached extreme frequencies which are hard to use, we've hit the power leakage problem at tiny feature sizes, and so many more issues.  Each process node improvement is a slow, expensive victory with ever more diminishing returns.  For a lot of kinds of chips its not worth the cost of going to a smaller process, and that means there is less demand to drive shrinking to the next node.  So it is not justified to look at the progress over M1 thru M4 and extrapolate linearly.  We aren't at the end of the road, but getting to each successive process node is less appealing. 

You are aware, I hope,  I was referring to the OP's comment about 40 years hence?  If you don't think in forty years computing power will be over 1000 times more powerful I am guessing you are young?  I started woking for Apple in the late 70s so have a long perspective.

Let's compare the Apple ][ to today's Apple Silicon, which I admit is over 40 years but not by so much as to alter my point.

Key ComparisonsThe 6502 was powerful for basic calculations, gaming, and rudimentary graphics, while today’s Apple Silicon can handle real-time AI processing, complex 3D graphics, and high-resolution video editing, often simultaneously.

In simple terms, the top Apple Silicon SoC is millions of times more powerful than the 6502 chip in overall computing capability. The difference isn’t just in speed but in the scale of tasks it can handle—moving from basic computation and graphics to complex machine learning and immersive experiences.  So, I stand by my comment. We have zero idea what will come in the future but I bet you anything you want, whatever it is will be more than a 1000 times faster.  Assuming we still have a planet that is.