mfryd

entropys said:

Apple destroyed its high end pro market years ago and every now and again remembers to insult it.

An interesting assertion.

The fact is that there isn't a single unified "high end pro market".   At the high end, there are a wide variety of needs.

The new Mac Pro seems to provide a lot of computing horsepower.  That's something useful to many high end users. 

For those editing video, the Mac Pro processor has built-in hardware encoding/decoding engines, and supports multiple high resolution video screens.  Real time editing/playback of multiple 8K streams is nothing to sneeze at.

The Mac Pro supports PCI cards for the import/export of video using professional industry standards (such as SDI).   

The Mac Pro is available in a rack mount configuration which is extremely helpful in certain professional deployments (Broadcast TV control truck, portable video editing truck, shippable temporary editing stations, server farms, etc.).

The Mac Pro is limited to only 192GB of RAM.  However, it has faster memory bandwidth than computers with memory slots, and fast SSD storage for fast virtual memory swapping.    This is enough RAM to serve the needs of a great many professional workflows.  While the old Mac Pro could handle over a TB of RAM, I suspect that the vast majority of them were configured with 128GB or less.

The big issue that people are complaining about is the lack of support for external video cards.  Apple's built in graphics are quite impressive, but there exist video cards out there that are faster.  So the market that's excluded here is that portion that needs more than what Apple provides, but can get by with what third part cards can provide.  A large part of that market is video gamers.  I don't think they are generally considered to be part of the "professional" market.  

Another market segment looking for the fastest GPUs are those mining for crypto currency.   These people generally are buying commodity computers, and not Macs.

The bottom line is that the "pro" market is only a very small percentage of the total Mac market.  Only a small percentage of that pro market needs more than 192GB of RAM and/or third party GPUs.   

So while it's true that the Mac Pro is not ideal for every professional who wants a Mac, it certainly meets the needs of most professionals.

Apple is clearly targeting the Mac as an appliance.   Frankly, that's a benefit to almost all of the market.  Yes, there is a very small percentage of users who need expandability, insanely fast graphics cards, and over a TB of RAM.   They are not in Apple's target market.

Apple has transitioned to a system on a chip model that limits expandability.   Frankly, it does a great job for the vast majority of the market.  This design vastly increases performance, but places limits on total RAM and external graphics.  By having the CPU and GPU share the same memory, you reduce time wasted moving data between the two.  By having that RAM onboard, and not in an external slot, memory access speeds are greatly reduced.   If you move to off chip socketed memory, or an external GPU with dedicated memory, you lose a lot of the benefit of the Apple Silicon architecture.   Yes, you could have a Mac Pro with more memory than a Mac Studio, but it wouldn't run as fast.  

I am not saying that Apple couldn't design a CPU that efficiently supports socketed RAM and external GPU, but it may not make business sense for them to design a new architecture for such a small market segment.

avon b7 said:

mfryd said:

avon b7 said:

mfryd said:

avon b7 said:

mfryd said:

chutzpah said:

...

The intention of the directive is not the same as the wording of the directive.  There is nothing to stop Apple creating a "better than USB-C" wired charging solution and using it, even in the EU, as long as they abide by the specific wording of the directive for phones that they sell within the EU.  That is, all phones sold that charge via a wire must feature the common charging port, currently identified as USB-C.

And they are under no current obligation to share anything.  

In other words, Apple is free to innovate and develop a better connector, as long as it is USB-C.

This reminds me of the old days when AT&T had a monopoly on telephone service in the USA.  You could have whatever color telephone you wanted, as long as it was black.

Sometimes the best innovations come from technology that is a dramatic break from current practice.

Prior to the iPhone, the goal to improve smart phones was to make a better mechanical keyboard.  If the government had imposed a standard requiring certain sizing of these mechanical keyboards, we wouldn't have the modern smartphone with its virtual keyboards.

Prior to USB, we had RS-232 serial connections on computers.  Some devices used DB-25 connectors, some DB-9 connectors, and some various other connectors.  If the government had mandated one of these to impose a common connector for serial communications, we would not have USB (Universal Serial Bus) at all.

Now, I am not commenting on whether or not requiring USB-C is overall a good thing or a bad thing.  I am just pointing out that such a requirement has both good and bad effects. 

More than good or bad, it's more case of one aspect outweighing another. 

Prior to this directive, the EU tried (and with great patience) to cajole the industry into solving a serious problem. That of multiple different chargers, most of which were not interoperable. This was lock-in in the purest sense. The result of that was a MoU (not legislation) which saw the industry move to USB. Guess who didn't? 

A decade later, and as a result of not seeing the result it was aiming for, the EU brought the common charger directive to the table which, by the way, tackles a multitude of devices (not just phones). 

There have been all kinds of consultation and impact studies. 

No one proposal solved all the possible problems so that was never ever the goal. 

The current directive aims to resolve a specific set of problems. Not all of them. 

No, innovation will not be stifled. Innovation will be channeled through specific standards. The decisions behind the current directive even make direct mention of future possible improvements.

Even though wireless charging was specifically left out of the directive, Apple has woken up to the realities of what might happen and worked to integrate Magsafe into a standard. 

These directives are therefore likely to have worldwide repercussions and that is a good thing. 

As an aside, it was Apple that refused move on from a 10 year old 5W charger and dumped millions of them on users for more than a decade. That's a very long time in technology. 

The EU directive seems to be geared more towards cables than chargers.   Current iPhones are already compatible with standard USB-C PD Chargers.  iPhones generally don't come with a charger, only a cable that allows charging via a standard USB-C charger.

I don't know about you, but my experience is that cables wear out much more quickly than chargers.  I tend to keep cables for longer, and replace chargers when more efficient ones become available.  When I move to a new phone, it generally time to replace the charging cable anyway.   I don't see this new regulation as reducing waste at all.

The EU regulation requires Apple to use a common USB-C cable as the wear item that gets routinely replaced.  Let's not pretend that this about chargers, it's about cables and marketing.  The EU doesn't like that Apple is free to innovate as to the connector used on their phone.


I suspect that if you glued a lighting to USB-C cable into your existing iPhone, it would meet the new EU rules, as it would then use a standard USB-C connector for charging.

 "I don't see this new regulation as reducing waste at all."

The impact assessments show that it will. 

I have a multitude of different chargers for different devices at home and none of them are fully interchangeable. 

Yes, cables are another element in the charging process and current lightning cables add to the fragmentation problem that the EU directive is aiming to tackle. 

Apple iPhones already use standard USB-C chargers.  You can use the same charger for both iPhone and Android phones, the only difference is the cable.

In fact, you can even use the USB-C chargers that come with a MacBook to charge an iPhone.  Some configurations of MacBook come with a dual port USB-C charger, allowing you to charge both you MacBook and phone at the same time.

Again, let's not pretend that this regulation is about the chargers.  It's about not letting Apple use a proprietary cable.    A three pack of 6 foot MiFi certified USB-C to Lighting cables is around $12 on Amazon.

Cables are a wear item.  They get routinely replaced whether the phone has a USB-C or lighting connector.

In what way do you see this rule reducing waste?  It doesn't affect the chargers that IPhone use.  All it does is says that if someone is switching from Android to Apple, they can now continue to use the worn out Android charging cable, instead of using the new cable that came bundled with their phone.

It is absolutely about chargers and cables. It is about reducing fragmentation, reducing e-waste and also trying to take the confusion out of connectors. 

The directive will also herald new labeling efforts. 

It isn't about going after Apple. It's about the entire industry of small electronic devices. 

Apple already uses USB-C chargers.  This rule is about changing the cable.   In terms of e-waste, cables are a wear item. This rule won't make cable last any longer.  

ArianneFeldry said:

If Apple makes a magical new connector that completely supersedes USB-C, they can submit it to the USB Implementors Forum as a new standard. If this magical connector is so good, they won't have any problem with getting other companies to adopt it. If it's so good, customers will flock to it instead of USB-C.

Possibly.

But they chose not to release lightning as a standard.  They kept it proprietary to Apple.   Perhaps Apple felt that Lightning gave them a competitive advantage over competitors using Micro USB.

chutzpah said:

mfryd said:

ArianneFeldry said:

macxpress said:

The EU might as well just be Apple's new design/engineering team. They're doing a great job at stifling innovation by mandating ports and speeds....let's not stop there! What's next, Apple has to make every new iPhone with a minimum 50MP camera? Or, perhaps they will mandate that all new iPhones must be able to run both Android and iOS? 

How exactly is telling Apple to get with the times and use a modern port that allows for a 40Gbps standard stifling innovation? Was Apple stifling innovation when they moved to only USB-C on the Mac? How about with the iPad? Or was Apple being innovative when they did nothing with Lightning to improve speeds? Oh, an adapter allowed for USB 3.0 speeds on one iPad. How innovative!

Why are you mad that the EU is telling Apple that they cannot sell you a device limited to 480Mbps when transferring data?

They are telling Apple that they can't use something better than USB-C for wired charging.

No they aren't.  The regulations do not say anything like that.

Perhaps I misunderstood the EU regulation.  My impression was that if the phone used wired charging, that had to be over a USB-C connector using the USB standard.