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The Mac Pro Lives

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Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#641

Post by ianai »

intoverflow2 wrote: post #107
jlgaddis wrote: post #5

For me -- and, I suspect, many others -- this is too little too late. Just a few months ago, I spent somewhere around $4500 (all-in) putting together a new workstation. It runs Linux instead of OS X and this has led to me using my (4-year-old) ThinkPad more than my (18-month-old) MacBook Pro (when I'm "on the go"). I actually plan on selling the MBP; I just haven't gotten around to it yet. I'm sure this is great news…

Same I was a huge mac fan, switched during the TiBook era a good 14 years ago used them throughout my professional career (designer, 3D, animation, creative tech) but after waiting and waiting for a pro refresh with Nvidia I bit the bullet and built a PC in December. I would have been willing to spend several thousand £ on a Mac Pro that met my needs, ended up having my needs met by a PC with a GTX 1080 that cost les…

I really wonder what that meeting was like. But you know it happened.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#642

Post by deeth_starr »

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…

No, I used Mac then Windows in the PowerPC days, then back to MacOs on the switch back to Intel. I still need to use Windows for work sometimes and I still think some things about it are better (file management). But in so many ways it's way better. If I needed to build a high end video/gaming workstation now I would buy a PC. But I would still have a mac laptop to do everything else. Let's see what Apple comes up with, but my guess is that this is the reality going forward.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#643

Post by gutnor »

Xixi wrote: post #377
jrimbault wrote: post #254

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If Macbooks, and by extension macOS, used a "normal" keyboard layout I'd agree (not talking about the touchbar, which is gimmicky at best imo). But currently, on the french layout, you can't even pipe things. A Macbook dual booted with a normal keyboard would be my dream machine I think.

You can very easily buy a MacBook with a "normal" US keyboard, even in France. Personally I gave up the french layout several years ago. It took me maybe one week to get comfortable with the US-International input to type accents when writing in French, and that was it, never looked back. The US-International input is very simple: to do an à you do ` then a, to do a ç you do ' then c. This input mode is however quite…

Nowadays (at least in Sierra), you can "long press" a key to pop up an iOS like menu of alternative character. eg: à = long press "a", then "1".

The normal US keyboard has alt-e (´), alt-`(`), alt-u (¨), alt-i (ˆ), alt-c (ç), alt-n (˜) for the combinable version of accents.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#644

Post by jzl »

valuearb wrote: post #462
stephen_g wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is completely irrelevant to this situation. Their Mac Pro sales have surely already reduced to a trickle, and they will know that they will not sell a huge amount of the updated bridging model. The iMac update has been expected for a while so they're not changing much mentioning that's coming later this year either. It's not like killing the current Mac Pro sales is exactly going to put Apple in trouble - they'r…

They just refreshed the Mac Pro though. That's curious timing with the announcement.

I would guess that the only people buying Mac Pros at this point are people who need to for infrastructure compatibility reasons, and/or who need something more powerful than a MBP but absolutely can't go with an iMac for whatever reason. These are mostly people who probably would have been buying more even without the bump. So the bump is just a nice bonus and tip of the hat from Apple to hang in there.

Example of what I'm talking about? Check out this Mac Pro server rack setup:

http://photos.imgix.com/racking-mac-pros

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#645

Post by ansible »

jads wrote: post #93
jaimebuelta wrote: post #12

This is an incredibly weird thing... Inviting a bunch of bloggers into a room and saying that they're sorry, but they have great stuff down the line? It feels incredibly un-Apple.

They likely didn't have a choice, especially as they released a speed bump today. The Mac Pro had become a bit of a joke but the iMac and MBP range was powerful enough (just enough) that the pro community would grumble more than complain. After the critical reception of the new MacBook Pro range amongst the Apple community, especially pro users, everyone was questioning Apple's commitment to pro users, and the Mac as…

The pessimist in me thinks that Apple simply had no idea that there was this sort of demand for pro Macs.

I've heard again and again stories about power users that are editing videos (4K these days) or doing other content creation (3D animation, etc) which can really benefit from high-end hardware.

I'm thinking it was more an issue they couldn't figure out a high-end, upgradable Mac Pro which kept their beefy profit margins, and didn't become a support nightmare at a price point that was somewhat reasonable (i.e. less than $10K USD).

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#646

Post by haikuginger »

simonh wrote: post #369
m_mueller wrote: post #290

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Specifically: * HiDPI support in all apps, whethere they are aware of it or not. * Built-in PDF editing and creation from all printable content. * POSIX scripting and CLI. * Very clean and consistent configuration system (defaults). Reset an app to factory? Delete one plist file and potentially an app support folder. Got a new Mac? You could even boot it up from the old harddisk. Good luck doing that with windows reg…

Big items for me on MacOS * Drag-and-drop automation, scripting and workflow tools. I love folder actions. * Built-in screen recording in QuickTime Player, which also works with attached iOS devices * Time Machine backups. So easy to use and has saved my bacon over and over * iMovie and Photos. I don't use the rest of the bundled apps, both those two are essentials for me.

I literally don't know what I'd do if I didn't have the capability of Automator combined with completely-customizable keyboard shortcuts everywhere. It's seriously a power user's dream.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#647

Post by jolux »

scholia wrote: post #480
jvzr wrote: post #391

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I understand they are not worth it, but it boggles my mind that you have to accept their presence in the first place. You never explicitly asked for it to be added there, did you?

You never asked for Solitaire or Freecell either. And you never asked for Notepad or Calculator or whatever. Did you have mini-hysterics about Solitaire being bundled, and did you waste hours worrying about it or removing it? What about the pernicious inclusion of Edie Brickell's Good Times in Windows 95? ;-) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqL1BLzn3qc Candy Crush Saga was actually one of the benefits of Windows 10 t…

This is idiocy. Solitaire and Freecell are originally not video games, and nobody is making money off selling them. Candy Crush Saga, on the other hand...well, I don't think I need to explain to you who benefits from having it preinstalled on Windows.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#648

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

nemothekid wrote: post #625
willtim wrote: post #618

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Free software offers a spectrum of quality and innovation; and you've picked the worst of it. I use a desktop (i3), package manager (nix), editor (Emacs), programming language (GHC Haskell), file system (ZFS), bidirectional sync (unison) and security​ (gnupg) that are collectively far more innovative, powerful and stable than anything Apple have ever produced. Of course, if you are specifically looking for consumer t…

>Of course, if you are specifically looking for consumer tech, ease of use and support, then open source probably isn't for you. If you can look past your smugness a bit, why? Why is it that if I want "ease of use", open source isn't for me? Do you not see the problem here? I can't see how you can argue your favorite projects are more "innovative & stable than anything Apple have ever produced", but in the same breat…

Don't listen to him, there are open source UIs that are easy to use. Gnome, KDE, and XFCE all behave pretty darn well and are pretty stable.

i3wm, the window manager the post above is talking about, is incredibly complicated, but provides efficiency and a sense of accomplishment when learned. That reward from learning something complicated is where the smugness of most open source enthusiasts comes from. Don't look too much into it.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#649

Post by Keyframe »

colept wrote: post #522
taude wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is this just because the newer cards are so new, or will there never be drivers released anymore? That's a bummer. And makes me feel slightly more confident on going back to Windows from Hackintosh. It likely wouldn't affect me for a few more years, since this 970-based, Intel gen 5, desktop that I built up a couple years ago, still has plenty of longevity left in it.

I think what he's trying to say is that you're stuck a generation behind in GPU's - for example there are no Pascal drivers for Nvidia. For anything earlier, Nvidia periodically releases drivers about a month later than the OS version bumps. There are drivers for 10.12.4.

That's it. With any future releases being under a dark cloud of doubt.

Re: The Mac Pro Lives

#650

Post by simonbarker87 »

chaostheory wrote: post #449
simonbarker87 wrote: post #300

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A nicely designed item is unrelated to where it should be placed. The OP was specifically saying that Apple lost the Pro market because the unit "demanded" to be put on the desk which is absurd since the Mac Pro can be placed anywhere that the cables allow it to.

The feature that allows a current Mac Pro to be placed on a desk comes at the price of more important features like being able to easily upgrade and expand a Mac Pro. Could be wrong but I feel that's one thing that OP wanted to express.

The trade offs made give it a small footprint, I've seen many cheese graters on desks and they were fine. Initially I assumed OP meant the same thing as you highlight but after talking about keeping a pros desk clear I assumed they were being more literal. If the issue is that Apple made a small computer that compromised on its core requirements then that's fine but to say that the issues stems from making a computer to sit on a desk alone is absurd.
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