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Apple Is Listening

281 pointsby dankohn1almost 6 years ago

35 comments

linguaealmost 6 years ago
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 have a specialist perform the upgrade, which costs more than doing it yourself. After over two years of waiting, the Mac Pro announcement was a huge letdown since the cost of the only user-serviceable Mac has doubled from $2999 to $5999, alienating Mac Pro users who can afford a $2999 computer but not a $5999 one.<p>It’s one thing for me to buy a “disposable computer” when it is priced very low. It’s another thing for me when you can’t upgrade or service computers with premium-priced parts in them. This is a trend I don’t support.<p>Unfortunately the only way to protest Apple’s business decisions is to leave the Mac, which means giving up macOS, which I find a more productive environment for me than Windows or any of the Linux desktops like KDE and GNOME. I started using macOS back when Macs were user-serviceable, upgradeable, and reasonably affordable. I continue using the Mac for macOS, but I’m finding myself alienated by Apple&#x27;s business decisions.<p>I wish the situation for personal computer operating systems were better. I want PC hardware with an operating system that has the same power, attention to detail, usability, and reliability that macOS has. At this point I am willing to spend my spare time on such a project.
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jarjouraalmost 6 years ago
I think Apple released this Mac Pro &amp; Display at the wrong event. From every indication, it was designed for Hollywood. Developers don&#x27;t need expansion, but Audio and Video producers do! Announcing at an LA event for producers and artists would have cleared any confusion.<p>It wasn&#x27;t designed for AI or ML either, because Apple is having a war with NVidia now, probably over component pricing, but who knows.<p>Developers didn&#x27;t ask for this machine or a $6k reference monitor. They just wanted something they can swap out the video cards or memory or hard drives occasionally as time goes on. They wanted a nice display that gave them 200% scaling and proper color correction in a matching aluminum body.<p>Whether I can afford this machine or not at home is beside the point. It&#x27;s just that after the keynote high wore off, and we returned to reality, it&#x27;s clear Apple revealed the machine at the wrong event.
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colmvpalmost 6 years ago
Back in 2012, I bought the original rMBP.<p>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&#x27;ve used it everyday since 2012, and aside from the battery which I eventually replaced, it&#x27;s been functioning without a hitch. From the 90s to the late 2000s, I used a variety of PC laptops and this was the only laptop that survived a huge amount of abuse from travel and daily usage (obviously, YMMV).<p>I&#x27;d love to upgrade to a new MBP, but I truly don&#x27;t understand what they were thinking with this current iteration. The touchbar feels gimmicky and over the top. Call me old school, but give me physical buttons any day of the week and keep the keyboard simple. Most importantly, give me a keyboard that has more room to press so that random dust getting in there isn&#x27;t going to screw shit up.
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clay_the_ripperalmost 6 years ago
Once they replace this travesty of a generation of MBP, I’ll agree with this. I’ve been impressed recently with the improvements in software and hardware.<p>I have a maxed out 2015 MBP and I won’t buy the most generation under any circumstances. I buy laptops with the expectation it will last at least 4 years, and I have no confidence that this generation will last that long. I have full confidence though that the rumored replacement will be amazing, much like the new Mac Pro adessed the past criticisms.
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jac_no_kalmost 6 years ago
Actually, I think Microsoft&#x27;s effort is putting much needed pressure on Apple. My wife about a year ago got a Microsoft Surface 6, the tablet with keyboard + trackpad. It was about the same price as a MacBook and with a bundle, the Microsoft Office suite came included. It works well for my wife&#x27;s use case and she&#x27;s able to stay with her preferred interface.<p>Hardware has been trouble free, Windows 10 with One Drive makes it straight forward to change machines, apps run well as a normal user account, and to my knowledge it hasn&#x27;t been hit with any malware. The screen being capable of touch interface, can actually be cleaned!<p>In comparison, my last of the &quot;good&quot; MBPr from 2015 has a partially fouled screen because the slightly greasy keys touched the screen. I am so annoyed when the screen is dark but I&#x27;m in a well lit room.
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coldteaalmost 6 years ago
Well, I&#x27;m not so sold on this.<p>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).<p>Where&#x27;s my $3K-$5K Mac Pro (basically a headless iMac Pro grade machine) for regular videographers, graphic designers, etc, that don&#x27;t make more than $100K&#x2F;year and don&#x27;t work for Nike or Hollywood? We used to have several options from Apple back in the day, now it&#x27;s either the iMac Pro or, I dunno, the mini. Still no extensibility.<p>2) Where&#x27;s a redesigned keyboard as a first priority? Why do they wait for a &quot;new redesign&quot; of the whole laptop? Meanwhile forcing people to keep buying the same broken design, even for the 2019 model? Just release the same current design with a decent 2015 style keyboard and the minimal tweaks needed to make it fit.<p>3) Where&#x27;s a pro apple monitor that people who don&#x27;t need &#x2F;can&#x27;t afford a $6K reference beast can buy? Where&#x27;s the iMac &#x2F; iMac Pro monitor in standalone form?
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cromwellianalmost 6 years ago
I&#x27;m wondering why you need so much power in 1 machine for DCC work. Wouldn&#x27;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?<p>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 I rent?<p>To me, it&#x27;s like they &quot;listened&quot; and built a Bugatti Veyron instead of a Ford F-350. The people wanting an upgradeable workstation are not looking for a max-out computer off the shelf. They simply want the capability to upgrade it over time or modify it according to their needs. In particular, for rendering 3d workloads, it seems renting cloud computers is far more scalable. If I am time limited, I can easily buy enough power to render 20x faster than this system in a crunch.<p>This seems more like a vanity project.
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kjhughesalmost 6 years ago
I&#x27;ll believe it when they produce a MacBook Pro that developers love again or a Mac Pro that (not yet independently wealthy) developers can afford again.
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secstatealmost 6 years ago
I think I might just be done with Apple. That culture of saying nothing and the surprising customers with things is like betting in Vegas. And unfortunately for Apple, the house always wins. They can repair the damage of the Mac Pro debacle with a new Mac Pro, but they haven&#x27;t owned the train wreck of a keyboard on the Macbook Pro. Sure, they might be ready to hit it big on a double down on black, but in the meantime, my Lenovo keyboard is a delight.
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bartreadalmost 6 years ago
The article mentions it in passing but they still need to fix the Macbook Pro: the keyboard sucks, it doesn&#x27;t have enough ports of any kind (and I <i>hate</i> carrying dongles - they eventually always get lost), it&#x27;s not upgradeable[1], the battery is too weak to sustain heavy workloads for long when running unplugged. They do at least seem to be introducing models with more horsepower.<p>I&#x27;m still &quot;surviving&quot; on a late-2015 15&quot; MBP, which is making me twitchy because I&#x27;m down to one machine after my late-2011 17&quot; MBP - which I used as my studio machine (built-in Firewire FTW) - died last week due to the somewhat infamous discrete GPU overheating issue (and Apple will no longer repair it; possibly fair enough after 8 years trouble-free use). I&#x27;ve resorted to buying a heatgun and some thermal paste to try fixing it, and will probably source a spare machine from that era for scavenging parts in future. I&#x27;m also considering a used 27&quot; iMac from a similar era for the studio, although it&#x27;s not so convenient to tote around.<p>Other options include buying a Windows laptop (probably Lenovo, which seem decent), although I hate Windows so would prefer to avoid it. Linux, although perfectly fine for a lot of what I do (and would I think be fine on many Lenovo models), will only run Ableton Live via Wine, which is not a prospect that fills me with joyful anticipation (ditto, Microsoft Office, I believe).<p><i>[1] A lot of people love the 2015 models and, I agree, they&#x27;re not bad, but the rot had already set it. For me, peak MBP occurred a few years earlier, back in 2011: HDD and memory are both upgradeable, battery is easily replaced, and in fact the modular design of the interior makes it fairly straightforward to pull out and replace or clean most internal components (motherboard, optical drive, fans, etc.). The GPU overheating design flaw is, however, a big fail, so these machines are still far from perfect.</i>
belazeebubalmost 6 years ago
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&#x27;s prices is ~$7,300. The original 128kb Macintosh would be ~$6,100 in today&#x27;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 accurate).
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natchalmost 6 years ago
I was ready to upgrade when the touchbar came out, but no, have been holding back for however many years that is. Still stuck on a 2013 MBP. Hoping Apple fixes the MBP soon. What&#x27;s broken? We all know -- keyboards, needless and costly touchbar, and SSD prices out of step with market prices. Yes I know you can get it without the touchbar, but not with top of the line specs, which I usually go for.
rbanffyalmost 6 years ago
On the new MacPro, we have to consider the target audience.<p>It&#x27;s doubtful the machine is a good choice for anything other than an artist doing crazy sound&#x2F;video stuff. It&#x27;s simply too much compute power. Of course I&#x27;d love to have a 56-thread monster (I always wanted Intel to invest more seriously on Xeon Phi as a homogeneous CPU&#x2F;GPU replacement because I got tired of the VAX+supercomputer arrangement from the 80&#x27;s that survives today as the normal clever x86 driving stupid-but-can-lift-heavy-things GPU) but I simply can&#x27;t justify one for me. When I actually need to do some heavy lifting, there is always Google or AWS to help me with it (and Azure can rent me some really big Cray iron if I really, really need that kind of power). I have a cousin who was into computational chemistry that has mastered programming the classic Cray boxes and even he would probably be very happy with ad-hoc swarms of cloud-based boxes these days.<p>The main advantage of the Mac Mini is the size, but if you match specs with an iMac Pro or even an iMac, you&#x27;ll kind of end up with the same price for a machine without a monitor. It&#x27;s cute, but I wouldn&#x27;t get one. And the actual desk footprint of an iMac is more or less the same as a Mini with a monitor.<p>It&#x27;d be nice if Apple decided to sell the iMac LCD panels as standalone monitors (because I&#x27;d love to have a monitor with the same color responses as my iMac, just so that the background looks the same on all screens - or even the black background of the terminals were all the same shade of black, FFS). Maybe they will, but, again, considering all machines that can run macOS, all practical options in the low-to-mid-to-high-end (MacPros are waaay above that) have pretty nice free screens attached to the machine.<p>One minor complaint: the stand... Asking $999 for a monitor stand is beyond ridiculous. If it costs that much to make, then just sell the ultra-HDR 8K wundermonitor for $999 more and put the stand in the box. It&#x27;s not like it&#x27;s not much cheaper than the reference monitors it goes against. I&#x27;d totally get one without a Mac if I had to edit 8K video for money (lots of it). The stand is 2019&#x27;s version of the &quot;I&#x27;m rich&quot; iPhone app.<p>All in all, we should think of the Pro as the SGI Tezro of our time - exotic, expensive, ugly (it <i>really</i> looks like a cheese grater) and probably more than we need.
TurbineSeaplanealmost 6 years ago
Sure - working great for somebody like Marco who’s already loaded.
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imageticalmost 6 years ago
Apple took it to the max in terms of what IS possible with the Mac Pro. That&#x27;s awesome.<p>I don&#x27;t see any of the post-houses I work with on a regular basis chomping a the bit for the power they&#x27;re offering at $6k though. Most have already switched to PC&#x2F;Windows after Final Cut X and the Mac Pro trashcan came up very very VERY short.<p>This is definitely aimed at the highest budget niche audience. I&#x27;m sure a few very successful independent media people will buy them. I&#x27;ll be jealous.<p>I&#x27;ve owned 3 Mac Pros in my life, but this breaks any budget I could possibly lay out for anything I have ever worked on in my entire career.
vinay_ysalmost 6 years ago
It is quite plain that Apple never really listens to the user feedback in a traditional way (and rightly so). Their business strategy for Mac hardware and MacOS (specifically, pricing strategy) may not align with what most early and advanced users of Mac want. But this post seems to be sugarcoating it.
bitLalmost 6 years ago
Now, when can I get 8-core 15&quot; MacBook Pro without touch bar or 13&quot; MacBook Pro with 32GB RAM? I&#x27;d pay premium for non-touch bar option...
altitudinousalmost 6 years ago
Pro &amp; screen is a great machine. I think that because people are talking about it it is already a success. They will sell a lot, because Ferrari sell a lot, Red cameras sell a lot. They won&#x27;t sell one to me, because even though I am a successful indie dev I am clearly not the market they seek. The machines they make for me are - Mac mini, iMac Pro and hopefully the upcoming Macbook Pro, because my barely alive, coating missing from the screen, doesn&#x27;t hold any charge late 2013 Macbook Pro is still far better than the current brand new one.
antidailyalmost 6 years ago
The iMac 5k and Pros dont get enough love. They look great, are blazingly fast, and the display is ridiculously good. But i suppose the Pro is post-2017.
intellixalmost 6 years ago
Half of the keyboard started acting up on my 6 year old Early 2013 15&quot; MBP yesterday. Was waiting for the rumoured 16&quot; rework but had my hand forced to the 2019 15&quot;. The touch bar is already winding me up as I&#x27;m used to resting my fingers on the edge of the top of the keyboard. It&#x27;s constantly like: Siri, mute, brightness! siri! siri!<p>It looked cool on iMessage that I could scroll through smileys but that&#x27;s about it. Just about ready to completely disable the thing. Not sure how they&#x27;ll be able to backpedal on it cause replacing it would mean admitting it was a failure.<p>Perhaps replacing all keys with mini screens to allow total customisation of what&#x27;s displayed with the ability to still scroll on them?
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pupdoggalmost 6 years ago
Apple&#x27;s 2013 &quot;trash can&quot; design of MacPro actually helped HP Z8 series desktops finally get recognized for their power! No one realized that there existed a beast much more powerful than a MacPro.
overgardalmost 6 years ago
Releasing a hilariously overpriced and ugly computer that can cost as much as a new car and might appeal to a niche of a niche, to me, doesn’t really demonstrate any change in direction. (I love how people keep saying “the most powerful Mac ever”. Ok, but the laptop I bought 7 months ago for 2k has about the same amount of power as the base 6k Mac and it’s not housed in a giant garish cheese grater)<p>I say this as a person that bought exclusively macs from 2009 - 2015 but they don’t have a single computer I even remotely want at the moment.
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acrobackalmost 6 years ago
Stockholm syndrome is strong with this one.<p>On a serious note, problem seems to be extremely long product cycles for Apple Hardware products with &quot;my way or highway attitude&quot; from Apple.<p>These 2 make for a disaster recipe. Putting form before function is a fallacy which is bound to boomerang sooner or later.<p>E.g The monitor stand fiasco speaks volumes of either a disconnect or ridicule raised by wrong audience.<p>The latest MacBook pro is a bad and good design both depending on audience.<p>Last Mac Pro was laughably form before function for a fortune.
todd8almost 6 years ago
I’m not sure Apple is listening. I’ve had four Mac Pros over the years, and I’ve been waiting for years to replace my current (6-core, 32GB&#x2F;512GB) 2013 Mac Pro. I won’t be buying the new Mac Pro. I’ve ordered an upgraded new Mac Mini for MacOS work instead.<p>I really like my low end Dell servers running Linux so I’ll probably look for a Dell workstation to get a system with Xeon cpu and ECC memory. Maybe I’ll build a Threadripper system.
musicalealmost 6 years ago
&gt; Apple has doubled-down on its refusal to sell user-serviceable, upgradeable, and expandable hardware at prices that are within reach for most customers<p>Apple needs to bring back something like the Quadra 700, which was only $5700 in 1991. ;-)<p>Though I suppose what you are asking for is actually the 1st gen Mac Pro, which was $2500 in 2006.
mark_l_watsonalmost 6 years ago
Nice rig! In a way I guess I am happy that they don’t have CUDA&#x2F;deep learning support so I am not tempted to buy one.<p>It pays for Apple to provide very fast dev machines to support iOS and macOS platforms, and my Dad has been waiting for a new release to support 3D animation and video production.
steveharmanalmost 6 years ago
Building a Hackintosh is no fun any more.<p>It used to be a challenge but with the right hardware choices (plenty of lists) it&#x27;s only really one extra step than installing macOS on genuine Apple hardware<p>In the immortal word of Monty Python; there&#x27;s no pleasing some people :-)
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ksecalmost 6 years ago
I see a lot of people complaining about Mac Pro not for them and iMac &#x2F; Pro doesn&#x27;t fit their needs &#x2F; price point.<p>Is there any reason why Apple isn&#x27;t considering the option of using AMD?
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gonvaledalmost 6 years ago
I would like to remind international users that making use of American technology makes you a pawn in the current trade war.<p>The US is a counterparty risk.
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rotruxalmost 6 years ago
Gotta love posts with more comments than votes.<p>Steve Jobbs was a visionary tyrant who miraculously knew all this shit. They better be listening.
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lucasverraalmost 6 years ago
today&#x27;s proof ==&gt; <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;_JulianoRossi&#x2F;status&#x2F;1137840401904209920?s=20" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;twitter.com&#x2F;_JulianoRossi&#x2F;status&#x2F;1137840401904209920...</a>, Craig is responding email :)
nkkollawalmost 6 years ago
I&#x27;m not giving them a cent until they remove those awful keyboards from their laptops.<p>I&#x27;m on a Mid-2015 MacBook Pro which works great. Waiting.
udevalmost 6 years ago
Apple is listening to the shareholders.
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DDH-182almost 6 years ago
No they aren&#x27;t. If Apple were listening, we wouldn&#x27;t be expected to shell out $6000 for a machine where we&#x27;re going to have to disable half the cores (and lose 40-60% of the remaining performance) to achieve &quot;it might work&quot; security (until the next Intel vuln is found). If Apple were listening they wouldn&#x27;t be selling a freaking monitor stand for $1000. If Apple were listening, they wouldn&#x27;t be forced to abandon bash because they can&#x27;t be bothered to actually comply with the GPL (v3). Nobody can justify Apple at this point and the sooner it dies, the better.
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visionscaperalmost 6 years ago
The 2019 Mac Pro is what you get when you let &quot;Pro&#x27;s&quot;, the users of the intended product, influence the vision of the product. Something I don&#x27;t think has Apple has done ever, and rightly so. Users aren&#x27;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.<p>I would have liked to see a much more innovative product where not only the internals were replaceable and extendable, but that also allowed users to string multiple Mac Pro&#x27;s together, making it&#x27;s compute and memory almost infinitely expandable. Maybe even in some sort of lattice network form.<p>In this way a single Mac Pro could be cheaper and appeal to a broader range of Pro users (e.g. 4000 USD with 2 high-end GPUs). If you&#x27;d really wanted computational power, like the hollywood studios need to have, you could string three or four Mac Pro&#x27;s together. If you are a heavy machine learning Pro, maybe you would put 16 Mac Pro&#x27;s in a lattice setup, who knows.<p>I would have expected that the Mac Pro would have some sort of high-bandwidth interface, almost directly exposing the PCI bus, making it possible for software to see all resources (GPUs, CPUs, memory) of all connected Macs as a single machine. Apple, with their software and hardware design capabilities could have pulled that off.<p>[edit] PS: The Mac mini is not a good replacement for the suggestion I made to string multiple Mac Pro&#x27;s together, because it lacks to possibility to install one or more powerful GPUs.
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