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The Mac Pro Lives

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Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#271

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

cletus wrote: post #82

So Apple is completely rethinking the Mac Pro for a 2018 release 5 years after their last complete rethink of the Mac Pro? Does this mean it'll be another 5 years of no upgrades while they completely rethink it once more? This is the problem: Apple has just lost user trust with this one. All they ever needed to do was have something like the pre-cylinder Mac Pro: something PC-like. A case with replaceabl parts and lo…

Every company comes out with dud products once in a while. Remember the G4 cube? Apple's had a bad run when it comes to desktop machines, but you've put your finger on exactly what they need to do next: pre-cylinder Mac Pro revamp. They've done exactly that before, I don't see why they wouldn't again. Of course, if the 2018 Mac Pro turns out not to fit this particular vision, I'd guess it's pretty much game over for all but the most niche of their pro desktop customers.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#272

Post by pavlov »

The current Mac Pro, as we’ve said a few times, was constrained thermally and it restricted our ability to upgrade it.

So, when creating the 2013 Mac Pro, they knew they had to make a choice: either an upgradable system or a thermally constrained one that might look cool on the desk.

What kind of market research suggested that Mac Pro customers wanted the latter? Or were they expecting to capture some new kind of pro customer base that only buys sleek desktop cylinders?

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#273

Post by MBCook »

tomelders wrote: post #88

> For examples of the type of software that the current Mac Pro isn’t well-suited for, Federighi mentioned VR: “Those can be in VR, those can be in certain kinds of high end cinema production tasks where most of the software out there that’s been written to target those doesn’t know how to balance itself well across multiple GPUs, but can scale across a single large GPU.” Interesting that VR get's a mention there. Fe…

Doesn't necessarily mean Apple is working on VR, he could simply be referring to people making VR content (like video games) on a Mac where the current Mac Pro isn't up to the task.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#274

Post by fps »

unoti wrote: post #227
phyrex wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's terrible to script, you cannot make use of the billion unix command line utilities (and there is no equivalent eco system either), you need to use the mouse too much, and it's awful to program with in any but a small number of sanctioned programming languages.

What language are you wanting to program in that is awful on Windows? And regarding your other points, Windows scripting story has come a long way in the last few years. Your concerns sound like they come from many years ago and that maybe you haven't taken a look lately.

I've tried to do work on windows 10 Pro on a brand new 8 core Ryzen machine with 16 GB of RAM, SSD storage, and an RX480, and working in windows at the command line is 100x (no exaggeration) slower than Linux.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#275

Post by oneeyedpigeon »

dexterdog wrote: post #264
oneeyedpigeon wrote: post #188

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Have they ever limited upgrades to Apple parts on a machine before?

On pretty much every other product line, yes.

My Mac Mini's RAM says otherwise. Pretty sure that, for the vast majority of its history, the same goes for the iMac. And, obviously, the Mac Pro, even in its current iteration. What other product lines are you thinking of, aside from laptops?

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#276

Post by klum »

VelNZ wrote: post #229

Wow, what a torrent of negativity on this thread, I didn't see a single positive comment reading through the top level. This is excellent news, I'm chugging along on a 2010 Mac Pro and was very disappointed when the Apple Displays were cancelled last year. They are a staple of the lineup and always look gorgeous compared to what's on the market. I will definitely be buying the new Mac Pro and 2 displays to go with it…

Yep, great news indeed! For me, not regarding the Mac Pro especially, but that Apple is concerned about pro users, and that they are willing to talk about future plans.

Deciding on using Macs for your work is not only about the devices themselves -- you're buying into the whole Apple ecosystem. That's not something that's easy to change in a heartbeat according to which vendor currently has the best offering. And the more concerned you are about the future of Apples products for professionals, the more tempting it is to look long and hard at Windows or Linux, even if Apples current devices fill your requirements just fine.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#277

Post by SippinLean »

jrimbault wrote: post #269
yokohummer7 wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> On the other hand, if Windows had a proper shell and cli tools, like cygwin with zsh, but native and not Ubuntu layer inside - that would be tremendous. It is PowerShell, and it really is. Until recently I thought Windows had poor CLI support, and I discovered PowerShell and now I favor it even more than bash. Am I crazy? Possibly, but PowerShell is truly a piece of gem in the CLI history. It is a thoughtfully craf…

But why is it that the PowerShell terminal emulator is (graphically) even worse than a tty ? I've worked on ttys more agreeable on the eyes than Windows terminal emulators. Windows is supposed to have better font support than Linux. Also, if someone here has an answer: Why in the design of Windows aren't programs installed or symlinked in the PATH by default? I guess that was a design choice somewhere along the histo…

Fair criticism, but PowerShell is just under the hood, most devs on Windows use cmder or similar.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#278

Post by gkya »

VelNZ wrote: post #229

Wow, what a torrent of negativity on this thread, I didn't see a single positive comment reading through the top level. This is excellent news, I'm chugging along on a 2010 Mac Pro and was very disappointed when the Apple Displays were cancelled last year. They are a staple of the lineup and always look gorgeous compared to what's on the market. I will definitely be buying the new Mac Pro and 2 displays to go with it…

> Wow, what a torrent of negativity on this thread, I didn't see a single positive comment reading through the top level.

This is a thing many comments nowadays capitalise on. First, I'd rather read criticism than lodes, to see for myself if all the good in sth. is eliminated by criticism or not. Second, your statement is false, as there are as many positive comments as negative ones. If the negative ones are higher up, that means people upvote them, i.e. agree those negative comments, a right to which they're entitled.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#279

Post by jamespo »

adtac wrote: post #193
csomar wrote: post #178

Am I the only one that sees OS X as the biggest reason to switch to Mac? I mean Windows is good, but nowhere good as OS X. And please, don't tell me Ubuntu or other linux flavors. They look good (and are good if you are programming on them) but the UX is still lacking a lot. (Never mind the confusion of the different flavors, packaging systems, and configurations). Also god forbid you have a problem (especially a har…

>32/64GB RAM I'm genuinely curious - why do you need 64 GB of RAM on a laptop? Are there industries where this is a necessity? At that point, wouldn't you be better off having remote machines?

I agree, the cloud is not expensive. £30/month gets you a beast of a machine with OVH that's always online with masses of bandwidth. Connectivity issues from the client are the main consideration.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#280

Post by robotjosh »

H1Supreme wrote: post #126
TheRealDunkirk wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They wasted an entire hardware iteration on the Touch Bar that hardly anyone cares about. That's what put them in this position. If anything is un-Apple about it, it's that they so badly understood the desires of their customers.

Truth. I had $1,500 earmarked for a new macbook pro before they launched. Switched to Linux for all my development work shortly after. Which, I should have done earlier tbh.

I was ready to pay 6k+ for a max MacBook pro with external gpu and whatever other usb-c accessories they were going to sell. The lack of a ram upgrade caught me off guard, really no ram upgrade in like 6 years? Really its usb-c-only and they have no usb-c accessories? SMH
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