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Apple Is Listening

marco.org

211–220 of 379 posts

Re: Apple Is Listening

#211

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With Apple making the Mac Pro so expensive it opens up the grey market for Hackintosh PCs to run MacOS at a fraction of the cost. If Apple wants to beat the Hackintosh they need an ATX based Mac that doesn't cost $5999 but more like $999 that can be upgraded with a better graphics card and etc.

Hackintosh is fun for a tinkerer but not really practical for someone that just needs to get work done. I say this as someone who dislikes macOS and has tried the hackintosh approach in an attempt to build iOS apps without having to buy a mac. You can make it work, but it's a big pain and all bets are off when an update comes down the line.

Wasn't a pain even with an AMD CPU back 6 years ago. Doubt it is pain now.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#212
post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Biggest annoyance with the iMac though is you can’t, say, work from home with your work laptop and plug it into the screen. This is another case with macs where the situation 8 years ago was much better since they used to have target display mode. From what I understand, they killed it because they needed to use a custom format to drive the 5k screen initially. Now regular DisplayPort 1.3 and 1.4 have enough bandwidt…

That’s why I said I'm not spending my own money on a development class laptop . I have the same Bluetooth keyboard and mouse at home and at work - in other words, I don’t care about the keyboards on the MacBook Pros. Decent regular monitors are cheap. If/When I do get a 5K iMac for person use, my current two monitors will be attached to it for personal use and attached to my work laptop when I bring it home.

Well, if your work machine is a laptop (and that is the only reason you can take it home) you need to use it, if you want to work at home, hence the need for an screen to attach, which you cannot do, if your screen at home is in fact an iMac. (Work data of course stays on the work machine, everything else is a huge no-go)

Re: Apple Is Listening

#213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Apple's desktop options are actually quite strong right now. If you just want a really powerful desktop computer for dev work - get a souped up Mac Mini If you want it with a nice screen - get an iMac Pro If you're a video professional - get a Mac Pro The Macbook Pro keyboard situation is a garbage fire, though I will say that I'm quite happy with my 2016 keyboard after it got replaced for free through the program.

Mac Mini is not a really powerful desktop. It's has mediocre CPU with terrible cooling (not allowing it to reach even full potential), built-in GPU and non-standard soldered SSD. I want 16 core CPU (probably Threadripper, as Intel is unable to produce anything competitive recently) with Nvidia 2080 Ti or better GPU, and 32GB ECC memory for $2k.

And if Apple made it and put it into a nice case, I would happily pay $3k or even a slight bit more for it.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#214
post #28

I’m glad that Apple is finally updating their Macs again, but at the same time Apple has doubled-down on its refusal to sell user-serviceable, upgradeable, and expandable hardware at prices that are within reach for most customers. The laptops have soldered RAM and soldered storage. The Mac Mini and iMac Pro thankfully have DIMMs, but in order to keep the warranty, you have to visit an Apple-approved repair center to…

With Apple making the Mac Pro so expensive it opens up the grey market for Hackintosh PCs to run MacOS at a fraction of the cost. If Apple wants to beat the Hackintosh they need an ATX based Mac that doesn't cost $5999 but more like $999 that can be upgraded with a better graphics card and etc.

However Apple prevents their OS from being loaded on hardware other than their own. While you can do it they do put effort into insuring you do not. They do not sell a retail version of their OS.

Is that a good thing? I am not so sure. People complain about the power they have over their app store, or their efforts to prevent people from loading apps purchased outside of the store, but turn a blind eye to the restrictions on using the OS.

Windows for what few warts remains is much more free to do with as you please.

Still, I no longer buy Apple products if they are labeled as made in China, that is a bigger affront that all the locking of software ever was.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What's wrong with Mac Mini or iMac Pro?

Here are my issues as a user of a 2013 Mac Pro: - Neither the Mac Mini nor 2019 Mac Pro are user-serviceable; you have to take your Mac to an Apple-approved repair center if you want to upgrade your RAM (see https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205041#one and https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT208377 ). I guess it's nice to have DIMMs when the computer is out of warranty, but I'd like to preserve my warranty and not have…

For most consumer PCs, I have no problem with most things being soldered on like RAM, CPU, etc...but soldering on the storage is unforgiveable. And it has nothing to do with being able to upgrade it, but rather it's about the problems this introduces (and the options it limits) when it comes to data recovery when your machine inevitably @#$@#s up.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Remember the joke of “never underestimate the bandwidth of a 747 full of hard drives”? That’s the render farm. Throw a ton of work at it, and it’ll get done faster than a big single machine could. What would have taken a week now takes a day. The Mac Pro in our analogy is 5G wireless: not nearly as much bandwidth as the 747, but at much lower latency. Lots of interactive/real time applications are possible that in a…

Besides, we’re already using render farms where each machine has 20+ cores and 256GB RAM. A future render farm might as well be built from machines with specs similar to the new Mac PRo.

As far as I can tell, this Mac Pro's specs are on par with 2017 PC workstations.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#217
post #28

I’m glad that Apple is finally updating their Macs again, but at the same time Apple has doubled-down on its refusal to sell user-serviceable, upgradeable, and expandable hardware at prices that are within reach for most customers. The laptops have soldered RAM and soldered storage. The Mac Mini and iMac Pro thankfully have DIMMs, but in order to keep the warranty, you have to visit an Apple-approved repair center to…

Actually, I'm in the middle of writing an e-mail to the Tim address at Apple, saying that if it takes the environment seriously (and I commend them on what they have done so far) they really need to take the next step, be truly 'courageous' and prioritise repairability and expandability in their forthcoming products. Apple in the last 20 pushed the boundaries in terms of sleek and slim, but I argue those are last cen…

Tim from Apple is paying money to its PR department that gives away money to "green" organizations exactly to be able not to do anything that would really matter for our planet (and would hurt Apple income). Imagine Tim from Apple shows up on the stage and tells people that there is no good reason to switch to the new phone model every 2 years. It will not happen.

I have many "progressive", "pro-eco" friends who just can't understand I am still using that old crappy Nexus 5X although I could afford a new, fancier phone (and my cell phone operator would subsidize it partly and nice person from call center would add another 4 GB of free internet to existing 15, as if I could ever use so much using cell phone).

They also cannot understand that I am still driving my 10 years old car instead of leasing/buying a new car which would be more "eco friendly". I am trying to explain them that cars are not growing on trees and producing a new one is not really that environment friendly and that during past 10 years cars were not improved so much in terms of CO2 emission to justify the change (giving recent car makers test scandals it is hard to say if they improved at all. Even if I could buy electric car, which is not really an option in my country due to lack of infrastructure and my usecase - I don't drive in the city, only long travels - still producing a new car emits more CO2 than my car will emit during its remaining lifetime).

Same with driving to work (they buy those new cars for a reason, not to sit in a tram among those sweating people), same with using electric laundry dries (it is so unfashionable to air-dry laundry at home), etc.

People love to talk about being pro-eco and taking actions that make them feel good, but they can't face the truth that their consumption habits change would be infinitely more beneficial.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#218
post #155
post #114

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some of us were asking for this machine. As a developer who builds large, complex projects (it's not uncommon for a build to take 40 minutes on a 16-core Xeon workstation), the Mac Pro is exactly the type of workstation I'd be interested in. (The display is another story. That's definitely targeting the media production vertical.)

Wouldn't someone like you be better served on a 32 or 64 core Threadripper workstation then? I assume there's I/O bottlenecking in there somewhere, but for the rest, surely you're not 100% pegging all 16 cores all the time, but more parallelism would still benefit you to a certain extent... While not costing $6k+ for a base 8 core machine.

If you're targeting Apple platforms with your builds, just how does a Threadripper workstation address the problem? (And don't say Hackintosh...)

Re: Apple Is Listening

#219
post #10

Back in 2012, I bought the original rMBP. It fit everything I needed: it was thinner than my previous laptop as it had no optical drive, it was lightweight, it had a gorgeous screen, good enough keyboard, and seemed like a reasonable price for a higher end laptop work computer. I've used it everyday since 2012, and aside from the battery which I eventually replaced, it's been functioning without a hitch. From the 90s…

The worrying part is that in order to keep using the good MacBooks from the past, you need to keep them on the OS version that they shipped with. I have a 2012 MacBook Air that was crazy fast, weighed four grams, and even ran windows 7. Sure, the drive was small, but it was perfect. But some time in 2015 or so I made the terrible strategic blunder of upgrading to the latest OS version. Performance immediately dropped…

At least with the MacBooks, you do have the option to downgrade back to a previous version of the OS, if you find the performance of the new one not up to par. So why not go back to the version of the OS on your Air that you were once happy with?

For the record, I have the same rMBP 2012 model that the person you're replying to talked about, and it still runs great. But I'm typing this reply to you on a MacBook Air from 2010, running macOS 10.12 Sierra, in Chrome. Still works surprisingly well...

Re: Apple Is Listening

#220
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So, about the cost. This Mac Pro is for editing 8k raw video. Which is Hollywood stuff, shot on cameras that cost 10s of thousands of dollars, on top of 100s of thousands of dollars of lenses and budgets 10s to 100s of millions.

I don't work in Hollywood, but I work heavily in production engineering for television productions that work on A LOT of 8K RAW video and multicam where time is critical, we have days to edit where hollywood has months and multicam is pretty damn taxing vs how a lot of movies operate. Our budgets are a fraction of a hollywood production though. The base model Mac Pro isn't going to be doing much at all. The higher en…

Get a Mac-Mini, 8-core with 64GB Ram, and an eGPU. You will have no problem hitting that $3500 target, make it $4000 for a fantastic eGPU.

Also, why are you refusing to look at the iMac Pro? Best machine I ever had.

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