Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

9to5mac.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

291–300 of 301 posts

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#291

Post by intoverflow2 »

Karunamon wrote: post #247
FireBeyond wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the standard Apple argument, "You can't get things like this at all". "Well, what about competitors, X, Y and Z?" "Well, you can get things like this, but they might cost more." You're the one that said "5k screens cost $800-$1000 and they're inferior". The retort to that is not to say "Well, that monitor costs $1300". It's like you're only looking to acknowledge cheaper and inferior competitors and stick you…

This is the standard rebuttal to the standard Apple argument. "Why not just build a machine out of individual parts X Y and Z for $nnn less than Apple's price"? It completely ignores, at a minimum: - Apple vertical integration - All-in-one support/replacement - The OS Yes, you can technically build a machine with equivalent hardware specs for some $dollars less. The target market is probably not interested in doing s…

> Someone editing 4K+ video on Final Cut professionally

As someone who works in this industry these individuals are becoming few and far between. Think it's time to stop pretending Apple is a major player in this area, they pushed and shoved FCP users right to the edge and many just made the jump to better supported software and high end hardware.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#292

Post by intoverflow2 »

masklinn wrote: post #87
toufka wrote: post #29

How is this not another Trashcan Mac Pro? It is a beautiful, expensive device at launch but has no capability of being upgraded, expanded or experimented with. It looks to have same thermal conundrum as the trashcan needing to dissipate the heat of the screen - all while trapped in a consumer-level shell designed specifically for exterior looks at the cost of performance. Is it not just philosophically incorrect for…

> How is this not another Trashcan Mac Pro? In that it's not a Mac Pro at all. They have (uniquely) pre-announced a tower-style Mac Pro for "not this year"[0] back in April: https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives [0] and given how precise their wording was, it's not necessarily 2018 either.

It's pretty obvious that decision was made when this product was almost complete and this product was supposed to replace the entire Mac Pro line.

Obviously something changed their minds though.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#293

Post by intoverflow2 »

clhodapp wrote: post #131

Hrm.. Folks here keep acting like this means Apple still doesn't get the Pro market (or that there is still a pro market).. This really seems to me to be a "what can we get out sooner" product released as a stopgap to next year's preannounced new Mac Pro. I suppose it's still valid to fault them for the reality of their product line and for having gotten themselves into this position in the first place, but I think i…

>This really seems to me to be a "what can we get out sooner"

Feels the opposite to me, feels like they've considered this the Mac Pro killer. But then at the last minute back at the start of the year realised there was still a place for a Mac Pro.

Probably because this solves none of the real issues with the last Mac Pro.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#294

Post by haikuginger »

floatboth wrote: post #209
haikuginger wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If a developer/pro/etc. need 18 cores, most of the time they'll be OK with a top-end i7 -- I think. Not if they need ECC RAM - and if you've got enough professional stuff to fill 128GB of RAM, you really, really need ECC RAM.

Ryzen 7: eight cores, ECC support, unbeatable pricing. (No 128 GB RAM but you're not getting that with a desktop i7 either. Oh and the new HEDT platform that also has "i7"s… not all chips will support quad channel RAM!)

In context, I'm not sure I understand your point.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#295

Post by jarym »

Eric_WVGG wrote: post #202
jarym wrote: post #165

They wouldn't need this rushed excuse for a 'Pro' machine if they hadn't totally taken their eyes off the MacPro for the last 3+ years! It's like they woke up one day and realised 'oh crap people are pissed and when we asked them why we were surprised that we have upset customers because we haven't updated this MacPro thingy in a few years' and then Tim Cook must have decreed 'let's get SOMETHING out there to stop th…

I can't tell if you're being snarky or serious, but 1) the thermal dissipation on a 12-core (or is it 18? I forget) Xeon and a GPU like that is nuts, to fit that into an iMac must have taken years, and 2) you know that Apple prefers all-in-ones and has been wanting to take the industry in this direction for years. I'd prefer a new version of the cheesegrater too but to suggest that they rushed this together is ludicr…

Here's the rub: people who actually buy Xeon CPUs and high-end GPUs want those parts to be replaceable and upgradeable. It's why the G5 MacPro lasted as long as it did, and why the 2013 MacPro was comparatively a straightjacket!

If Apple are targeting the same demographic then they're in for another public backlash. Sticking all this high-end gear into a sealed $5k device is baffling. Make no mistake, this iMac Pro will be another 'Pro' product that's put out into the market and forgotten about for a few years.

It also did not take Apple 'years' to come up with this - while it probably existed as a concept for a while I am convinced they started focussing on it after the grumbling about lack of MacPro updates. Otherwise why wait until December to release it.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#296

Post by Eric_WVGG »

jarym wrote: post #295
Eric_WVGG wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can't tell if you're being snarky or serious, but 1) the thermal dissipation on a 12-core (or is it 18? I forget) Xeon and a GPU like that is nuts, to fit that into an iMac must have taken years, and 2) you know that Apple prefers all-in-ones and has been wanting to take the industry in this direction for years. I'd prefer a new version of the cheesegrater too but to suggest that they rushed this together is ludicr…

Here's the rub: people who actually buy Xeon CPUs and high-end GPUs want those parts to be replaceable and upgradeable. It's why the G5 MacPro lasted as long as it did, and why the 2013 MacPro was comparatively a straightjacket! If Apple are targeting the same demographic then they're in for another public backlash. Sticking all this high-end gear into a sealed $5k device is baffling. Make no mistake, this iMac Pro w…

Yes and no. I'm like you and I agree that this is not the computer for us.

This is a computer for Pixar artists. This is for some architects I know that do very technically demanding renders but shouldn't be trusted swapping out their own gpus. One can be a "Pro" and be qualified to or care about internals, and money is no object.

The problem isn't that computers like this exist, it's that our needs were misjudged. They acknowledged that a couple months ago, and the product is coming. Meanwhile it's dumb to deny that a market exists for Pro all-in-ones.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#297

Post by toufka »

intoverflow2 wrote: post #292
masklinn wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> How is this not another Trashcan Mac Pro? In that it's not a Mac Pro at all. They have (uniquely) pre-announced a tower-style Mac Pro for "not this year"[0] back in April: https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives [0] and given how precise their wording was, it's not necessarily 2018 either.

It's pretty obvious that decision was made when this product was almost complete and this product was supposed to replace the entire Mac Pro line. Obviously something changed their minds though.

Huh, that's an interesting thought.

Imagine Cupertino had (nearly) finished designing this sleek machine, thought it was a wonderful answer to refresh their Mac Pro, then they get completely railed in January for failing to provide professionals a pro machine when they expected it. They're late, they know it, but no biggie - they'll introduce this pro machine this summer and everyone will love it.

The pros then proceed to articulate exactly what their grievances are, and the machine that is sitting under the black cloth in the back room looks nothing like what their most loyal users are hurting for. And if listened to closely, the machine that's mostly finished is actually an insult to their most valuable customers. What do you do in that case? Completely scrap the beautiful machine you've already made? Or eat (silent) crow and promise a completely new product that you start working on tomorrow, and tell the engineers who were working on their pet dream computer to quickly finish up - let it be introduced mid-keynote by a non-executive, go back and painfully re-etch a diminutive 'i' in on each of the just-printed 'Mac Pro' bezels - likely to never recoup their R&D costs on this 'lost' product.

That's a good point. I bet that's exactly what happened here. Because if Cook would have given this exact keynote, but had introduced this grey iMac as their 'next new thing' that was replacing the Mac Pro, he'd have been booed off his own stage during Apple's most sacred moment. Apple had enough sense to avoid that moment. They have enough cash to produce an entire (temporary) product line that loses money. They don't have enough cash to lose their most die-hard and influential customers en masse and hear a crowd of 'boos' at the height of their hallowed keynote.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#298

Post by nileshtrivedi »

irrational wrote: post #239
threeseed wrote: post #197

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What developers are needing a Mac Pro ? Unless you're doing machine learning and then chances are you're either doing it in the cloud or you already have a specd out white box. Otherwise Macbook Pro has been more than sufficient.

Doesn't that depend on what kind of developer you are? If you are just doing coding then anything that can run your ide and 3-4 browsers will work, but many developers also need to run raster and/or vector software, video software (even though I'm a coder I still have to do image and video work on a fairly regular basis), database software, etc. I have so many tabs open in my browsers that they often are using 4-8 gi…

Imagine your test suite running every time you finish a line of code or save the file and report errors in real-time.

We can make use of all the computing power we can get.

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#299

Post by usaphp »

ganoushoreilly wrote: post #273
Karunamon wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is the standard rebuttal to the standard Apple argument. "Why not just build a machine out of individual parts X Y and Z for $nnn less than Apple's price"? It completely ignores, at a minimum: - Apple vertical integration - All-in-one support/replacement - The OS Yes, you can technically build a machine with equivalent hardware specs for some $dollars less. The target market is probably not interested in doing s…

I was responding to "A 5k Monitor alone costs around $800-1000 and does not compare in quality to Apple displays" In which my response was appropriate. The only difference from a monitor perspective is the Apple casing. We're not arguing specs of PC, OS, etc. but that the monitors do not compare to Apple.

Can you give me an example of a 5k isp monitor that costs less than $800 and has type c/thunderbolt ports?

Re: Apple Teases Upcoming Space Gray iMac Pro, "the most powerful Mac ever"

#300

Post by ganoushoreilly »

usaphp wrote: post #299
ganoushoreilly wrote: post #273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was responding to "A 5k Monitor alone costs around $800-1000 and does not compare in quality to Apple displays" In which my response was appropriate. The only difference from a monitor perspective is the Apple casing. We're not arguing specs of PC, OS, etc. but that the monitors do not compare to Apple.

Can you give me an example of a 5k isp monitor that costs less than $800 and has type c/thunderbolt ports?

"$800-1000 and does not compare in quality to Apple displays" I bought the LG 5k monitor from Apple for $949 and it's more than comparable.
Post reply on HN