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Apple Is Listening

marco.org

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Re: Apple Is Listening

#311

Post by pier25 »

coldtea wrote: post #261

Well, I'm not so sold on this. 1) Pro users wanted a replacement for the Mac Pro of yore. Instead they got something suitable only for high end pro studios, willing to pay $6k starting price for the new Pro (or are in need of a very-cheap-for-what-it-does (even-with-the-stand-included) but still very expensive reference quality monitor). Where's my $3K-$5K Mac Pro (basically a headless iMac Pro grade machine) for reg…

> now it's either the iMac Pro or, I dunno, the mini

What about the 5K iMac? With an i9 it becomes a very powerful machine that describes your use case perfectly.

It's not as repairable as a tower though, but neither are the iMac Pro or the Mini.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#312

Post by pier25 »

cromwellian wrote: post #153

I'm wondering why you need so much power in 1 machine for DCC work. Wouldn't it be better to have a relatively cheap model, and when you need to Render, to farm it out to a cluster of computers? For example, they claim the beefiest model will be 4x the old Mac Pro. But at what cost? $10,000-15,000 for maxed out system? How many cheap PC renderfarm computers can I get for that? How many cloud rendering instances could…

Offline rendering doesn't work for video editing or audio production which need realtime workflows. This machine was clearly made for those segments.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#313

Post by JohnBooty »

scarface74 wrote: post #51
JohnBooty wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really feel like you're missing the point of "That might work for Marco, since he has a lot of money" comments. You've summed up, very neatly, why he's talented and worked hard and has earned his money. But nobody's claiming he didn't earn his bunches of money. What they're stating is a simple fact: six thousand dollar computers might make sense for somebody with a bunch of money. But not for people with more modes…

How many people with “modest means” need the Mac Pro? Like I said, my parents were the definition of middle class - a teacher and a factory worker - and I had a $4000 computer setup in 1992 going to college (see specs in another post). That would be $7300 inflation adjusted.

You're posting in bad faith.

I didn't say "modest means." I said "more modest means" -- compared to a guy who made major cash thanks to an IPO. The vast majority of people on Earth, engineers included, have means more modest than that.

Second, I never said "need."

However, there are clearly a lot of folks who would benefit from top-tier desktop power (namely, developers) and would pay for it, but can't pay $6K.

   Like I said, my parents were the definition of 
   middle class - a teacher and a factory worker - 
   and I had a $4000 computer setup in 1992 going to 
   college (see specs in another post). That would be 
   $7300 inflation adjusted.
It's hard to imagine anything less relevant than this. For oh, so many reasons.

First of all, household median income in 1992 was about $30K unadjusted: https://www.multpl.com/us-median-income/table/by-year

Which was also roughly the average salary for teachers: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1993/10/20/07aft.h13.html

So your family like had roughly 2X median income. But that's besides the point. Besides, maybe they had 10 kids or something.

Can the average middle class US household sustain a $6K or $7 expense? Yes, with significant effort. And this made a lot of sense in 1992, because that's what a powerful desktop system cost and the alternative was not having a powerful desktop system. So your parents made the necessary sacrifices, and since you're posting on HN 30 years later I'm going to assume it was a fruitful investment. However, asking people to pay $6K for a computer in 2019 is an entirely different proposition. You can get that level of computing power for a fraction of the price.

I'm not particularly mad about the Mac Pro, mind you. There are alternatives and nobody's forcing me to buy one. I do, however, think that -- to return to the topic of this discussion -- that claiming Apple's "listening" to developers w.r.t. hardware is pretty laughable. Most developers want a fast-as-fuck CPU in a box, and many are perfectly willing to pay an "Apple tax", but not thousands of dollars worth.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#314

Post by tim333 »

jasonkester wrote: post #147
colmvp wrote: 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…

One interesting thing with the Airs is if you format the SSD or install a new one, slightly to my surprise the thing boots up and say 'OS missing would you like to download it' and it then downloads and installs the original OS the machine came with when new. At least that's what happened to me, 2014 model I think.

By the way I use a 2013 with High Sierra and it's not that bad - sometimes they are slow at first while they index everything and then speed up again when done. I get more beach balls than before upgrading but some other stuff works better, especially charging the iphone which used to drive me nuts with the old os.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#315

Post by belazeebub »

sjwright wrote: post #281
belazeebub wrote: post #109

To give people a bit of perspective, the Macintosh IIfx was released in 1990 for US$8,969 which in inflation-adjusted dollars is ~$17,500 today. The PowerMacintosh 8100 released in 1994 for ~$4,250 which in today's prices is ~$7,300. The original 128kb Macintosh would be ~$6,100 in today's dollars. Those are all the bottom-end models. By contrast, a Chevy S-10 pickup truck was about $7,000 in 1990 (if my googling was…

> Those are all the bottom-end models. I think you misspoke; the 128k, IIfx and 8100 were all unequivocally top-end models at the time of release.

Sorry, I meant that the pricing were for the entry-level configuration, not cherry-picked top configurations.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#316

Post by analognoise »

scarface74 wrote: post #272
michaelmrose wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the iMac pro 32 to 128 costs 2k, there is no 96. Then there is storage, display, gpu and the fact that the referenced machine was purchased months or years in the past vs months in the future. Assuming the user can do basic numeric comparison I'm assuming that his 10k includes substantial extras beyond ram that would also have to be added to the equivalent Mac.

Well seeing that - none of the upgrades have been announced. - he didn’t say anything about specs besides the memory and processor - you can get third party RAM for the iMac Pro. So the question remains - what point was he trying to make? Unless he like the other poster was bundling the cost of the monitor with the Mac Pro as if you have to buy both.

The 6k config comes with dual Xeons? That might not be a bad deal. I thought that was the base configuration, with dual processors available as an upgrade.

It says "up to 28 cores".

Re: Apple Is Listening

#317

Post by mantap »

baxuz wrote: post #228
root_axis wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I think that the new low level security chips, replacement parts with signed firmware and more and more software features getting baked into encrypted hardware is gonna be the end of hackintosh quite soon

They will have to support Macs without T2 chips for many years into the future.

I predict that MacOS's premier status will be disappear before Apple manages to lock it down. The Mac app development community is dying. Apple strangled it to death with the heavy handed Mac App Store sandboxing policies. Nobody wants to develop exclusive Mac apps anymore.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#318

Post by Alupis »

ktta wrote: post #310
Alupis wrote: post #306

Earlier quoted context omitted.

GP said they were using a Xeon workstation, so I assumed it's not an Apple offering already.

iMac Pro has a 18-core Xeon W option.

I guess I meant, usually people with Mac systems call them a Mac of some sort, not just a generic "Workstation".

Re: Apple Is Listening

#319

Post by visionscaper »

visionscaper wrote: post #253

The 2019 Mac Pro is what you get when you let "Pro's", the users of the intended product, influence the vision of the product. Something I don't think has Apple has done ever, and rightly so. Users aren't product designers, they should not be involved in the vision of the product; they must be involved in getting the details right for them. I would have liked to see a much more innovative product where not only the i…

Why is my comment downvoted? If you have any beef with it, please reply.

Re: Apple Is Listening

#320

Post by scarface74 »

imagetic wrote: post #121
overgard wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, I can easily get a computer for 4K that rivals a Mac Pro. I think like 4 years ago my employer let me spec out the computer I bought for 4K and I built a 20 core Xeon monstrosity with 32gb of ram, 3 monitors, and like a $700 Nvidia card. 4 years ago! If apple was listening to their customers they’d offer a customisable desktop tower in the 2-5k range people are willing to pay. As much as I like the iMacs display…

If they had done an 8-core i9'ish option with 64gb of RAM and an RTX card equivalent for $3500...I would hit the speed dial to my Apple sales rep.

The Core I9 versus the workstation class processors wouldn’t use the same motherboard. It’s not just a configurable option. I understand the desire for such an option. But that wasn’t the market they we’re designing for.
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