The new Mac Pro + 6k monitor has landed - introducing the Cheese Graters

[Trek of Joy]

The computer starts at $5999, 6k panel starts at $4999. Plus iPad OS fixes many of the gripes about iOS when trying to replace a laptop. Nice.

https://techcrunch.com/2019/06/03/apple-releases-the-6000-pro-display-xdr-a-32-inch-6k-display-available-this-fall/

[newfoundmass]

$5999? No thanks. I can't justify paying that for something that I can't easily upgrade myself. 

[kaylee]

well, here it is. looks remarkably familiar... ?

just for the record, i used to work at an appl store, and customers legit used the previous model as a trash can. im not being figurative or exaggerating. they would just crumple up the wrapper for their ice cream cone and toss it in there

anyway, what do you guys think of the new one, specs/etc?

i think im going PC workstation for vfx in the future, but idk!

[newfoundmass]

I'd go the custom Hackintosh route or PC. 

I genuinely love Macs. I've owned two Mac Pros and three iMacs going back to 2001. I moved to Windows in 2015 though because I just couldn't justify paying Mac prices over a PC that I could continue upgrading / investing in, that cost a fraction of the price.

[Turboguard]

3 hours ago, newfoundmass said:

$5999? No thanks. I can't justify paying that for something that I can't easily upgrade myself. 

Wasn’t the point of this upgrade that you can actually update it yourself compared to the old one? Did you see specs/video?

[Andrew Reid]

Hmm

https://www.eoshd.com/2019/06/apple-targets-red-users-hollywood-and-corporations-with-controversial-new-10000-mac-pro-system-and-6k-display/

So this machine is kind of a tactic admission by Apple they lost the prosumer desktop market to Windows PCs and have given up ever trying to get it back.

So they are aiming at pro businesses and studios, not individuals.

If you are an individual who can afford to drop over $11k in one go on a base spec Apple computer + 6K screen, and perhaps more like $18,000 if you want the better specced versions, you are very lucky indeed and in an absolutely vanishingly tiny minority!!

It beats me why they did not also announce a $2k upgradable modular desktop for the rest of us??? Or does it... PCs, that's why.

But I want Mac OS and I am pretty upset at having to stick with comparatively slow iMacs and MacBooks for so many years. The 2013 Mac Pro is a bit of a bad joke in performance terms in 2019 by the way, so that's not an option either.

[newfoundmass]

1 hour ago, Turboguard said:

Wasn’t the point of this upgrade that you can actually update it yourself compared to the old one? Did you see specs/video?

The article I read didn't mention that it was upgradable. That's great if it is, though I still can't justify $6k for it. I think that's double what I paid for my last Mac Pro nearly 10 years ago, if I recall correctly! 

Mac has always charged a premium, but it was still feasible for enthusiasts and smaller creators to scrape together the money to get a professional machine. Not so much anymore. They've moved on from those folks, unfortunately. If you want a real Mac and don't want to have to take a second mortgage out on your house, you have to get iMacs and overpriced MacBooks with shitty keyboards. Neither are ideal solutions for me, given how rapidly those machines become antiquated. I built a custom PC in 2015 for $1k that blew my 2014 iMac that cost nearly 3 times more out of the water. 

[JasonDimopoulos]

Totally agree. Its very frustrating that there isn't anything out there for those that love the MacOS, but not the silly prices. I've been using a Windows laptop for the last few years now and really need to buy a proper desktop. I was hoping this would be the year to jump back on board, but that price for those specs, no thanks! 

PC's are a pain to work out when trying to configure/build a machine and so much is aimed at gamers rather then video editors. 

[Andrew Reid]

Apple Mac Pro Prototypes:

 

[Robert Collins]

51 minutes ago, Andrew Reid said:

 

So they are aiming at pro businesses and studios, not individuals.

 

Well they 'say' they are aiming at pro business and 'Hollywood' but I dont think this is really the market. It looks to be a classic Apple case of 'building and image' for a product that is more style than substance. My guess is this product will be very popular with 'CEOs' and 'Chairman' of companies who like a bit of 'bling' in their office and who will say it is a 'beast' as they use it to do their emails and surf the web.

I'll bet they will sell a ton!!

[IronFilm]

Am watching the WWDC recap videos. Am mostly just finding it to be really funny! Seeing as lots of this stuff they are calling AMAZING, well Android has had it for ages.......  still, good job Apple in putting in the effort to catch up!

 

[majoraxis]

I think I will wait for the 32" 6k iMac version... that would be a nice upgrade!

 Also, I think Andrew was right about $50k for the camera's people are shooting for Netflix originals on.  I was looking for a counter example of a Netflix Original shot on an approved less expensive cameras in particular USRA Mini Pro and I was not able to find any...

[Clayton Moore]

I think that Apple's entry into the world of Hollywood content creation is part of what this is about.  Adobe, Black Magic, and AVID are already to release versions that run on this.

When you think about it, for Apple to be in the movie business and not be able to market Apple pro-video technology in their usual sexy way would be lost opportunity.  I predict that in time the "consumer" iMac will fade as their mid-level market will hollow out and leave the high end like this and mobile / portable market  and thats pretty much it.

[Video Hummus]

I own a fair amount of Apple products and I am well aware of the “Apple tax”, but generally, in the past, you were getting a solidly built machine with decent specs and a great ecosystem that just worked.

This new machine looks like an IKEA foot stool with hardware to match a foot stool. The base specs and components are laughable. The very fact that diehard Apple fans laughed at the $1000 monitor stand says all you need to know: Apple has lost touch with the Pro users who championed the hardware and software.

Apple has left me no choice but to choose a PC in the next few years. Pricing this at $6000 is a clear sign they are not interesting in Pro users that make up the bulk of Apple enthusiast that championed the system in the past. It’s even a rip off for cash cow media studios.

I would frankly be surprise to see a version of this under $3000 that didn’t come with 2+ year old hardware in the base configuration. What a joke. All about the margins now.

[newfoundmass]

One good thing about this announcement though is that they stuck with Intel. I know there were many in the Hackintosh community that were worried that they were going to start making their own processors again, with 2020 being the year a lot of them said it would happen. 

I wonder too if, by being more "modular", if this also makes building a Hackintosh any easier? I've really been thinking about building one as my current system gets older, I've just always been worried about something going wrong at a crucial point while working. 

[Video Hummus]

3 minutes ago, newfoundmass said:

One good thing about this announcement though is that they stuck with Intel. I know there were many in the Hackintosh community that were worried that they were going to start making their own processors again, with 2020 being the year a lot of them said it would happen. 

I wonder too if, by being more "modular", if this also makes building a Hackintosh any easier? I've really been thinking about building one as my current system gets older, I've just always been worried about something going wrong at a crucial point while working. 

If you build one be prepared to stick with whatever OS you eventually get to install on it. Frankly, not worth it in my opinion. They work one day, and one update later it doesn’t boot.

[Robert Collins]

Max with his good, mostly bad but not ugly review.

[newfoundmass]

3 hours ago, Video Hummus said:

If you build one be prepared to stick with whatever OS you eventually get to install on it. Frankly, not worth it in my opinion. They work one day, and one update later it doesn’t boot.

That's my worry, though I'm wondering if this new approach will make that less of an issue. In the video Max released that @Robert Collins posted he said that it can now use off the shelf parts. That would seem to possibly open the flood gates, so to speak, as the biggest issue with Hackintoshes was hardware compatibility, or so I've read.

 

[kye]

There's an economic theory that basically says that 10% of your customers can afford to pay 10x the price for an item if it gives them something they can't get elsewhere.

That means (for example) that if Apple are selling 18M computers per annum (link) then there are roughly 1.8M people who would buy a computer that cost 10x what the Mac cost.  If a family car costs $25k think of how many people buy $250k or even $2.5M cars.  And if R&D costs a the same figure to make a super-charged version then you will still recoup it by selling the same overall $ amount of them per year (10% of 10X is 1).

You guys might be surprised they're pricing a computer so high, but I'm surprised that they don't make computers that cost $40k and $400k.

[sanveer]

Why a 6k Monitor if one wants to edit 8k, especially if it has 8k real time editing capabilities? 

The afterburner (FPGA card) thing seems pretty amazing, as do the enormous (and super fast) RAM capacities. 

The pricing though, seems to be pushing things to the old NLE years (that Grant Petty mentions in his various interviews), where the market wasn't democratic, because they costed in the Hundreds of Thousands of Dollars.

Curiously AMD is pushing processing power higher and prices lower (when it releases Xeon beating processors later this year, things should really heat up), and RAM prices crashed with way more production and way lesser demand (until the consortium, by unfair trade practices, slowed production and improvements in RAM speeds and capacities). The only thing missing with the shelf components is the afterburner FPGA card. I hope someone makes that too.

Right now, this seems solely made for the 8k RAW shooters.