timmillea

"If you don't have a Qi2 device, you're better off with a MagSafe charger. You'll get faster speeds in the end."

The idea that fast = good has to be corrected. Fast charging is convenient in the short-run but very inconvenient and expensive in the long run - when you have to pay for a replacement battery in a device where it is not user-swappable. Correspondingly the cost of a new battery and fitting will be deducted from any resale value when the necessary battery health stat is determined. The faster charging is done, the faster the lifetime of the battery is diminished, both in terms of maximum storage capacity and overall longevity. For a long-lived, healthy battery, the slower the charging, the better. 

Apple, like most others, uses a compromise charging algorithm to charge quickly then slow down to deliver 'fast charging' until the damage to the battery caused would become excessive, so then slows down in the most critical, life-shortening phase. However, slower charging also in the initial stage would cause less damage and increase longevity. 

For a long-lived battery, device lower total cost of ownership, less device price depreciation: slow = good. 

Apple absolutely should and can do this. Base it on a bog-standard iPad spec but with a keyboard. Savings can be made with the display quality, battery life, processor speed and ports. Remember the iBook? This would be the iBook revisioned. But bring in Jony Ive to design it. We have had a succession of design faux pas from Apple of late. 

Do people really care that much what colour their phone is? Most people will only ever see their phone colour when it is first bought and when they sell it. The rest of its life it will be hidden by a case. 

It reminds me of the scene from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, when, in Earth's pre-history, a committee of hairdressers, telephone sanitisers, salespeople and the like had been formed to develop the wheel. Arthur Dent, the protagonist, loses his patience with them, "Look you have even invented the wheel yet!". One of the committee stands up and protests, "You tell us what colour it is meant to be!". 

"The Apple Vision Pro defines the genre for sure — at the very-high end. This time, intentionally, they aimed too high on cost for the consumer."

There is a clue in the name. The stripped-back 'Apple Vision' will surely follow once the 'more money than sense' market has been milked. 

JamesCude said:

It's a relic from another era. Mac Studio covers 98% of the use-cases and sorry but the remaining folks who "need" these really don't- they just need to update how they handle I/O and seek more efficient processing. 

Agreed. The antiquated Pro is an inevitable victim of the switch to Apple silicon. The revolution of Apple silicon is all about bringing as much possible on-chip for speed gains and power savings. This is the antithesis of a 'tower' desktop.

I loved my 2008 Mac Pro. I could not fail to admire the beautiful engineering every time I had reason to switch a graphics card, add a hard drive, then latterly an SSD, or add more bullet-proof ECC RAM. It used so much power it kept my office warm and, when it was working hard, I couldn't hear the rain outside. Those days are gone. My modest M1 MacBook Air that I replaced it with is faster and silent. It drives a huge external display and any other functionality is provided care of Thunderbolt rather than huge, cumbersome PCI cards. 

The Mac Pro is a dead parrot. Deceased. It has outlived its evolutionary purpose. 

In the Mac Pro's favour I will say that I now require heating in my office and I find the sound of rain, and other things I couldn't previously hear, quite distracting.