tenthousandthings

I think we’ll see an M1 Mac Pro before the M2 comes out, or maybe an announcement at the same time. There will be four release/refresh stages for macOS devices (I posted this in the Air thread as well):

[1] Each generation of Macintosh Silicon will appear first in the MacBook Air and the Mac Mini. Both will be silent masterpieces of technology with minuscule failure rates, with no fan, utterly reliable. 

[2] Next come the iMac and the MacBook, with the colors and the same silicon as the Air and Mini. These are consumer Macs, with lower prices and higher failure rates.

[3] Then the MacBook Pro gets its refresh with the new Pro and Max configurations. 

[4] Finally, the iMac Pro and the Mac Pro complete the cycle, with multiple dies and GPU advances. Depending on what they do with the Mac Pro, this stage could be split into two phases.

All of this takes place over a cycle of about 18 months, with some flexibility built into it. Apple Silicon will not make promises it can't keep. It won't be like clockwork, and it won't be an annual cycle. macOS, however, will stay on an annual cycle, because it has to keep up with more than just changes in the M series, but that doesn't mean the hardware will.

Non-clickbait information in that Digitimes article, in a nutshell:

Apple is not using the same supplier for backlight modules for the 2022 iMac Pro and/or Pro Display as they are using for the 2021 MacBook Pros. 

Seems like it is a three-way equation. There is the science of hardware, the development of software, and the marketing of systems. Apple already has a well-oiled machine that runs on an annual cycle for all three elements. [A-series, iOS, iPhone]

For Macs, 18 months is arguably a better timetable for all three elements. For Apple Silicon, it takes time to ramp up from the base M-series to Pro/Max to multiple dies. For macOS, the annual pressure seems like it has become too much — Monterey had important features announced that ended up delayed, and an 18-month macOS cycle would ease that. Finally, an 18-month refresh cycle works well for marketing. People would know what to expect. They could upgrade every 18 months, or after three years, after four and a half years, or after six years. They could get AppleCare for any of those intervals. 

Detnator said:

sloaah said:

darkvader said:

shareef777 said:

The best display is the XDR and it’s not meant for people in general, it’s meant for professionals. Just because it’s not sold in volumes doesn’t mean higher end (low volume) products shouldn’t be made. The average monitor today is 2k one going for ~$500. Apple offering a “lower cost” smaller XDR at $2500 doesn’t fit that average, not even on the high end. The high end consumer monitor is a monster 49 inch curved one by Samsung and it “only” goes for $2000.

An M1 iMac sans Mac parts is EXACTLY what people would go for. $700 for the 24”, $1000 for a 27”, and $1500 for a 32”.

No, it's not meant for professionals.  I work with video professionals, folks who do TV stuff that there's a decent chance you've seen.

They don't have monitors like that ridiculous $5000 Apple screen.

Those are for rich idiots.

Sadly this is true. I’m also in the film industry and the XDR has received so much flak for its poor backlight performance. It sits in a no man’s land - too expensive for a GUI monitor, and nowhere near good enough for colour critical applications. 

It also feels to me a bit like the philosophy of the previous gen of Intel MBPs. A proper colour grading pipeline is quite complicated involving LUT boxes etc. Apple tried to simplify all of that but has consequently forced a workflow which simply cannot work in an professional colour grading context. 

Personally I think the monitor should be retired completely, and that Apple should release cheaper models and possibly an updated Pro XDR which is actually functional. 

These are some reasonable comments.  Indeed the XDR has some issues. It’s a first gen product that fits a pretty small niche, but that’s been true of past Apple monitors. 

When the first 22” Apple Cinema Display came out in about 2001 or so It was amazing and like nothing else at the time. But it was also pretty niche and about $5K.

But as niche as it was, for that niche it was just what we needed. I bought one for what I was doing at the time and the increased productivity paid for it. 

Within a couple of years they had replaced it with the 17/20/23 inch range followed by the much loved aluminum 20/23/30 range all for small fractions of the 22” price. 

I’d argue this XDR is even more niche, because of the points made above by sloaah but I’m hoping the XDR is the start of a new range of displays - a repeat of something like the above. 

Marvin said something similar in the other thread (about the three demo units rumor) -- he pointed out that this basic LED/XDR tech was introduced in the Pro Display XDR but quickly spread to iPads and recently to the MacBook Pro. Aspects of it are also in the iPhone. Soon it will be in the iMac Pro. He also pointed out that this is standard industry practice: "High-end TV manufacturers do the same where they launch a new technology like OLED or Quantum Dot at a really high price point and over a few years it filters down to mainstream products. Probably so they can assess longevity/defect rate in a low unit volume before hitting a mass market."

No display will meet everyone's needs. That should be obvious, but apparently, it's not. These new displays, whether standalone or inside the new iMac Pro, or both, will be lower-cost and will have learned from experience. We *don't* know to what extent whatever issues there have been (with blooming, for example) will persist in this second generation. We *do* know that Apple's displays will be higher resolution than the 4K standard that you see, for example, in LG's brand-new, just announced "Pro" UltraFines. As far as I can tell, those are aimed directly at sloaah's world. For others, like me, the brighter and the higher the resolution, the better. Apple's priorities seem to be aligned with my own. Yay! 

kendog52404 said:

I'm also on Youtube TV and "affected" by the blackout.  However, going to Hulu w/ Live TV simply isn't an option for me, because I was originally on it, but when I switched to T-Mobile Home Internet, Hulu w/ Live TV conflicted with it.  They can't "reconcile" what the IP Address shows (via T-Mobile Home Internet) versus what my physical address actually is.  Youtube TV works with T-Mobile Home Internet, so I switched to it.  I'm now hoping this dispute get's resolved before January 1st, since that's when the Iowa Hawkeyes play in their Bowl Game.  Any service I do end up adding, temporarily, to get the Bowl Game(s) would still need to work with T-Mobile Home Internet.

Sling is having a “sale” for a month in response to this, so you can use the $15 YTTV discount to get Sling Orange for $10 to get all the live Disney/ESPN stuff (ABC Sports streams on ESPN3, so if the Iowa bowl game is on ABC, it will stream on ESPN3), and basically save $5.