Apple talk dramatic 2018 Mac Pro update amidst multiple controversies

[Andrew Reid]

Apple. We need to talk about Apple.

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[eris]

Considering the amount of time and effort for another OS to be designed and develop an application base, that's unlikely to happen.  Either Apple pulls their head out of their nether regions or the only alternative to Windows is Linux.  Nothing wrong with Linux.  It's a great OS, but it would take movement by major application vendors like Adobe and Blackmagic to get together.  Maybe if Ubuntu decided to capture the pro market they could be convinced.  It's either that or Hackintosh.   Someone will undoubtedly take professional advantage of the situation soon.

[Cubanito]

Quote: I certainly see very little innovation on the Mac side right now, both in terms of the hardware and the software.

Everybody is out of the office, working on the new building!

[wolf33d]

Interesting. I use mac at home and PC at work. I can't believe the number of people still using PCs these days. The Mac OS is so much better, the integration with the hardware is in another league, the global experience (speed, bugs, viruses..) is a million time better. 

I would not get a PC even if it was the same specs for 10 times less money. The fact is when you want to buy a real equivalent pc (for exemple a PC that copies the MacBook Air, same aluminium, same battery life of 15h, ...) it's the same price yet the value goes down a lot more. What a joke....

FYI I have a MacBook Pro at home with latest specs, same at work in a PC. Again, same specs but such a different experience. 

Apple clearly did a mistake with the Mac Pro which did not answer real need of pros (but answered their dream of having everything small and thin and bla-bla-bla) so it is good to hear they realize their mistake and correct it.

[webrunner5]

Your Crazy LoL.

[Andrew Reid]

13 minutes ago, webrunner5 said:

Your Crazy LoL.

You're.

[Phil A]

@wolf33d Different strokes for different folks. I really couldn't get into Mac OS, my girlfriend has a MacBook Pro and I loathe using it. I'm a windows man through and through.

I agree that it's great how Mac is such an integrated system, the energy saving functions are a lot better than on windows with its non-standardized hardware support woes. But then when you run the system at high load with active dedicated GPU, you suck every mobile system dry in no time. I decided to opt for a heavier and higher performance laptop in the willingness to always be plugged into the wall when I actually do work (Lightroom, Photoshop, Davinci Resolve, ...). Apple has the lead when you use optimized software, but that often gets lost when you use cross-platform products (Davinci Resolve for example is a resource waste, it's not optimized in any way. The system requirement manual is basically a huge "buy better hardware" flyer).

I think it's nothing but personal preference. For me, give me Windows with file explorer, etc. But then I have an IT related degree so I don't mind to spend some time setting up a system from scratch to run well (I also don't fill them with garbage so I'm not one of the "format C:\ every 12 months" crew).

I'd love if Apple came out with new, more performance oriented systems. Just like the Intel vs AMD thing, competition is good for consumers.

[Jimmy]

Apple make so much more from things like appstore and itunes that the hardware and desktop OS are almost an after thought now.

[Nrubloc]

12 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

You're.

I'm inclined to think "crazy good" rather than just plain crazy.

[Shirozina]

Once inside an app who cares what system it's running on......

[Andrew Reid]

16 minutes ago, Shirozina said:

Once inside an app who cares what system it's running on......

I do.

A workflow is not just about one app. It's about the whole ecosystem.

The user interface stability and design is also important and an area where Windows doesn't meet my needs yet. It's flakey.

People who aren't familiar with Mac OS tend to think it has a dumbed down UI but actually it has huge depth and most importantly enforces a CONSISTENCY across all your apps, rather than the wild-west of Windows where the basic UI conventions are scatter-dash and random across the board.

Unix is also a fundamentally more secure and efficient core technology than Windows, and it evolved from NEXTSTEP which was more advanced as well, along with better memory management and better drivers which aren't as bloated and don't need to be constantly updated (with the risks of something breaking when you do). The drivers on Mac machines only need to work with a small subset of hardware chips whereas on Windows they need to support bloody everything ever made!

Apple has also been careful to strip away the legacy bloat in their OS, whereas Windows still clings to ancient things at the core of it.

[Shirozina]

I should amend my statement to say 'I' don't care what system I'm working on once in an app. I know windows strengths and weaknesses ( which are not nearly as dire as you make out BTW) 

[docmoore]

I stayed with the older MacPro and when spec's are adequate it works ....

 

Bob

[longbow]

This is really welcome as I've been using Apple computers for work since 1989 and for the first time since a rough patch in the early 90s I've been seriously beginning to wonder about moving away from them. During that time I shudder to think how machines I've bought. There's been some real lemons (an Apple IIvx was probably one of my worst ever computer purchases) but also more than enough wonderful machines that paid for themselves many times over. However, its becoming obvious though that under Tim Cook that they've become a relatively risk averse mobile phone company to whom computers have become something of a distraction. The computers they do now make are targeted at either families (the iMac) or Apple execs (the new MacbookPro) who value light weight, battery life and never need to transfer anything much bigger than a financial report or a keynote presentation. The old joke that if all you have is a hammer then every problem resembles a nail couldn't be more appropriate to Johnny Ive's recent creations, his hammer is an odd obsession with looks, thickness and weight at the expense of the old it just works out of the box philosophy. (My current waste bin MacPro (6,1) doesn't just work without a really annoying mess of expensive external hard drives, dongles and third party cables. Its basically a souped up Mac Mini or a laptop without a keyboard or monitor)

From my point of view the most worrying thing as a result of this change in attitude in the past few years is they've quietly dropped pretty much their entire professional line up and features. The Mac Pro as a modular machine, the 17" pro laptop, the Mac mini, X Servers, the 30" monitor, matt screens on iMacs and laptops etc etc have all gone. Software is being dumbed down for iOS - Aperture has gone and iPhoto is now the the iOS photo app. Keynote is a shadow of its former self. Even my spell checker on my Macs now seems to assume I'm on an iOS device and I'm never looking down at a keyboard and 'helpfully' inserts word changes without me realising. Agh!

I thought they might turn things around with the new MacBook Pro and I was awaiting it with some trepidation as if it was a compelling graphics machine I'd have probably gone and splurged on it (that would have really dented my cashflow!). I needn't have worried though... What we got was a machine aimed at an exec to wave around on a flight or in boardroom or perhaps a senior software person. (Apple designing for themselves perhaps? Interestingly when I was chatting about it to an Apple bod in one of their shops he quietly confided that he was waiting for it too but had changed his mind and bought one of the previous models they still had in stock on the day of its release. (The previous models sold out pretty quickly after that!)

I think the response to the MacBook pro has panicked them and suspect they've rushed out a speed bump to the MacPro ("Look, look we're doing something!) and have promised that professional iMacs(!) are imminent. But most telling is that they've pre-announced a new modular Mac Pro at least year in advance! Yes, pre-announced it! When has that ever happened before? (That'll kill even the new speed bumped MacPro stone dead!) That to me is a touch of panic.

 

 

[OliKMIA]

[webrunner5]

Your, eh You're Right!

[docmoore]

Perhaps NEW MAC: SLEEK ... etc.

Mine is big has 4 internal bays with Fujitsu enterprise drives plus two optical bays now populated with SSD drives ... eight memory slots ... three fans ...

27 inch Dell 5K monitor and two external RAID arrays. Last of the MACs that could be loaded and I am hopeful that they will bring another one in

a year as this one is running 15 hours a day ... going on 6 years. Every time there is a system update I have to put an older video card with Mac BIOS

in just to configure it with a new nVidia driver.

Runs hot and when I am processing video sounds like a drone is circling the ceiling of the room.

My office runs about 4 degrees warmer than the rest of the house in summer ... wish I could mount it in a closet but none close enough. 

So hoping 2018 brings back a professional machine.

 

Bob

[Jimmy]

23 minutes ago, longbow said:

I thought they might turn things around with the new MacBook Pro and I was awaiting it with some trepidation as if it was a compelling graphics machine I'd have probably gone and splurged on it (that would have really dented my cashflow!). I needn't have worried though... What we got was a machine aimed at an exec to wave around on a flight or in boardroom or perhaps a senior software person. (Apple designing for themselves perhaps? Interestingly when I was chatting about it to an Apple bod in one of their shops he quietly confided that he was waiting for it too but had changed his mind and bought one of the previous models they still had in stock on the day of its release. (The previous models sold out pretty quickly after that!

As an all around creative, I find the new macbook to be great. I downgraded from the Mac Pro 2013 (fully spec'd) to the 15" Macbook (fully spec'd)... I can design huge print files in Photoshop, massive UI/UX artboards in Sketch, edit 4K video in Premiere, create complex VFX in After Effects, create 60+ track audio in Reason... I'm struggling to find an example of where the machine chokes and i'm really putting it through it's paces on a day to day basis. The only time I move over to a PC is when we are testing VR stuff on the Vive.

[Bioskop.Inc]

Been waiting (& saving) for a new iMac for a while now & this is very welcome news.

I was thinking of jumping ship, but use a PC at work & they are SHIT compared to a Mac - always have been & always will be. Using a PC is like walking through mud backwards blindfolded with your arms tied behind your back!

As far as editing is concerned, FCPX is really the Dogs Bollocks compared to Premiere (outdated & clunky) or even, dare I say it, AVID (& I've used Avid in a pro environment a lot). FCPX is just so quick & intuitive to use, I can get a project done in half the time of the other systems. The whole marketing around Premiere, when FCPX cam out, was just so funny, since no one I knew was using Premiere (& by that, I mean in a big pro studio environment) - it always was Avid/FCP.

[OliKMIA]

I've been a PC guy all my life, just happened like that, like starting with Canon or Nikon. I have zero brand fetishism or preference. I'll switch to Linux or Mac as soon as I see any advantage but right now the Mac computer are just too expensive for the specs.
At home my girlfriend recently bought one of their latest laptop and Iphone and every-time she needs to do something beyond internet browsing she calls me to rescue her:

- Want to install some "exotic" software, NOPE, it doesn't work on Mac

- Want to watch a movie via the Laptop HDMI, of course there is no HDMI out on the Mac laptop

- Want to plug anything in general ? NOPE, there is very little connectivity and the removal of the 3.5mm is utterly stupid IMHO. Just another excuse to sell you overpriced accessories. Plus, I hate the wireless accessories, it always runs out of battery when you need it the most.

- Need a basic apple cable ? You must buy the dedicated Apple cable for $29 or it won't work properly.

As for Apple and ethic, they are no better or worst than all the other silicon valley hipster companies. They are here to do business. They are not cool or evil, just protecting their own interest. Fighting Trump immigration policy when it's bad for their HR strategy but they haven't said anything about the new FCC policy change regarding selling the internet history...