Maybe Apple needs to do clearer segmentation between their pro and not-pro product lines?
When I first started using Macs seriously (~2008) the difference between iMacs, Mac Pros, the toy-like white MacBooks and the smooth unibody MacBooks was stark, in both appearance and performance. Now it's hard to tell the difference between the three different varieties of MacBook at a glance, especially the 13" models.
A part of it is that the biggest gains have been had at the bottom. 90% of people have no need for a powerful, dedicated GPU now. Going from an i5 to an i7 does what, exactly? 8GB of RAM is "good enough". Apple Music and Netflix et al mean that 256GB SSD is enough. The difference between "normal" and enthusiast hardware just doesn't mean a lot at the moment.
I think that's what has led to every flavor of Mac having samey specs.
I doubt that the demographics of Apple users have changed much in the almost-20 years since the colorful iMacs came out: creative pros and people who think Apples are "cool".
I would like to purchase a Macbook Pro with a dedicated Nvidia GPU, so that I can use CUDA. The only viable option is a 2 yr old refurbished MBP for $2k. So... what now? I'm looking for a good laptop with an Nvidia chip that will run Linux without huge problems, I guess. It's pretty frustrating b/c while we use Ubuntu servers, everybody in my group uses Mac laptops. It would be nice to maintain consistency. Most of us have MBPs from before they switched to AMD GPUs.
If true portability is your goal this probably isn't an option, but may be something to consider if your use case is a bit more flexible - you can connect a GPU via the thunderbolt port with something like this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00NTQI4UA
But apple even drops people who just want a cool new toy. I have my Macbook Air for 3 years now and, although I am fine with its performance, I would buy a new one. But the specs have not changed at all. So I keep my old machine. Looks like Apple does not need the money.
This is a very real problem. I am still running an early 2009 Mac Pro that is slowly beginning to resemble the 1970 Mustang Mach 1 I drove in high school. I have replaced the original graphics cards with an upgraded unit to get GPU support in Photoshop. I have installed a couple of SSD's to get away from spinning iron. Hunted high and low to finally find a USB 3.0 card that would work. Have been thinking about a swap to move from an 8 core tray to a 12 core unit.
It's really hard to justify buying a "new" Mac Pro that is a 4 year old design at this point. I keep hoping that Apple will announce a revamp but the days since the last release keep climbing and best guesses have the inside date at mid to late 2016 at best.
Since my creative applications are mostly subscription based and cross platform, software costs aren't so much of an issue anymore....
I have been using the Mac since '85. I have not used Windows since XP (job required) but I still get hives when I am around an MS box. Still this may be the future.
I'm still on a Mac Pro 2008, and I've written several articles about upgrades which drives the majority of my blog's traffic. I've done everything from jam in a nVidia GeForce 760 GTX, to SSD, to mini-PCIe wireless A/C card + Bluetooth 4.x The legs the Mac Pros had are incredible pre-2013. As someone who's contracted for four TV shows for some visual effects on the side, it hurts that I may have to switch to windows.
Here you go, I imagine some of these are underhand pitches for the HN crowd, but here you go. There's a few that most users are simply unaware of, such as replacing the Airport card with one that supports ant continuity and handoff and Airdrop support.
7.5 years later, and my 2008 Mac Pro is still going strong.
I'm in the market for a powerful desktop and I considered getting a 2012 Mac Pro. It would be awesome if the 2016 Mac Pro was a tower design. Alas, we can only dream.
You and me both. 2012 Mac Pros have retained their value quite a bit because of Apple's 2013 debacle. The Firmware upgrade (if you can score CPUs) makes the 2009 the best bang for buck.
Thanks for posting this. Perhaps I will have to screw up my courage and try to do the firmware upgrade and go to twelve cores. If anyone knows a really good source for a tray swap please post here.
I've been a huge Apple fan, but they've been constantly pushing me away with both their hardware and software.
Now that we have so many pixels to push, graphics acceleration has become a key part of the computer, and apple's offerings are anemic at best on mbp.
OS X has also become much more "walled garden"-like and fisher price feeling. With every release they become less developer friendly.
I'm moving to Linux as much as I can and when I finally had to get new hardware, I got the top of the line Inspiron 7559 and replaced the hd with an ssd. It's better than any mbp hardware you can buy today (with the exception of the trackpad. Apple cannot be beat with that!) at half the cost!
Sure it's half the price, but at the cost of foregoing an aesthetically pleasing design, backlit keyboard (paid upgrade), gaining over a pound of weight and 40% more thickness.
For me personally, and I think a lot of us, design is more/just as important as performance at the threshold these machines have reached. I work better and enjoy the feeling of using well designed tools.
While I don't edit video, I still consider myself a "pro" user. I'm a developer like many here, and, like many here, enjoy doing my work on a rMBP. I bought it with the understanding that I wasn't going to be upgrading the hardware inside it. I got the specs I knew I would need. If I need to upgrade, Macs retain their value better than most (if not all) of the other manufacturers, so selling this one and replacing it shouldn't be a problem.
Sure, I sit in the coffee shop with it sometimes, but I don't drink lattes (americano usually), and I don't just browse the web. My rMBP is more than a toy, and I get real work done on it every day.
I'd wager there are a lot more like me than the "pro" user described in this article. Now you tell me: who should Apple cater to more?
To be honest, unless you are compiling a giant C++ app or perhaps 3d rendering, developers put very little load on a machine. Consider that we typically write text files and push them remotely for execution. A 486 was sufficient for that.
A few years ago getting enough memory together to run a VM or two might be the largest issue/load. But now memory is cheap and cloud/containers are popular. Containers have breathed new life into my 5 year old machine.
Does it really take much to maintain a user modifiable tower? I imagine the amount of engineering the 2013 Mac Pro took, was greater than simply maintaining a 4x PCIe slot box with whatever the latest and greatest Xeons are. Apple could have left the tower exactly the same. Problem solved. It's not sexy, and its not exciting but it'd keep a very dedicated group of Mac buyers happy and married to the platform.
It isn't mutually exclusive to cater to both audiences.
Well, since you are a developer you don't have so many performance of hardware requirements. The pro user described in the article doesn't really apply to you.
> who should Apple cater to more?
That's the real question, and of course we will all be biased here. For someone like you it's fine that you can't (for example) get the latest GPU technology, but for someone that works on digital effects that is a very real issue.
It is a fact that Apple used to cater to such audience before, and the whole point of the article is if Apple is leaving that audience behind or not.
In the past years I've gone from a 15" MBP to an 11" MBA and most recently the 12" MB.
I hate the MB. The key travel is way too short and have seen no signs of adjusting. The lack of expansion ports is criminal. Just one more. It's the little things--like no led to indicate charging/charged. I use it for testing for work, but that's about it.
My MBA plugs/docks into my cinema display. Keyboard and mouse are plugged into the display USB hub. Ethernet on the other USB port. When I travel it's super light.. no complaints.
Just for reference, the MBP was just too heavy and hot. Lugging around the 15" in a backpack around airports all day was not comfortable.
I wasn't happy with the Lenovo laptops, so I went Apple. Now? Not sure where to go.
It dawned on me recently that Apple is not a good hardware company anymore. They're good, but gone are the days where you were happy shelling out because you knew you would get the good stuff. Now it's all non-upgradables, underpowered thin/elegant designs, overcomplicated lineups, less and less ports on the computers because adapters are cash cows, it's all very disappointing.
Apple has had this fetish with all-in-ones for at least 20 years. It's one of their design quirks where one team will come up with an SE/30 or even the tower design that is upgradable and usable for years, then another team will come up with the G4 Cube or the latest Mac Pro. Then enough people will complain about the lag for them to go back to upgradeable "tower" models again.
I don't know that there is a solution besides build-your-own or something. It's in the company's DNA and you end up taking the good with the quirks. Just like MS and it's need to require weird inconsistent software upgrades that are as much "change for change sake" as being actually useful. Or any version of Linux and it's weird GNU/FSF cabal that seems to have a corner on certain important tools but doesn't like it when anyone outside the cabal works on something.
27 comments
[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 70.0 ms ] threadWhen I first started using Macs seriously (~2008) the difference between iMacs, Mac Pros, the toy-like white MacBooks and the smooth unibody MacBooks was stark, in both appearance and performance. Now it's hard to tell the difference between the three different varieties of MacBook at a glance, especially the 13" models.
A part of it is that the biggest gains have been had at the bottom. 90% of people have no need for a powerful, dedicated GPU now. Going from an i5 to an i7 does what, exactly? 8GB of RAM is "good enough". Apple Music and Netflix et al mean that 256GB SSD is enough. The difference between "normal" and enthusiast hardware just doesn't mean a lot at the moment.
I think that's what has led to every flavor of Mac having samey specs.
I doubt that the demographics of Apple users have changed much in the almost-20 years since the colorful iMacs came out: creative pros and people who think Apples are "cool".
http://www.highpoint-tech.com/USA_new/series_RS6361A_specifi...
> Supported PCIe Cards: Any Thunderbolt Aware PCIe cards including Audio, Video Capture, Ethernet, Fibre Channel, and Storage/RAID controller cards
No GPU support.
But apple even drops people who just want a cool new toy. I have my Macbook Air for 3 years now and, although I am fine with its performance, I would buy a new one. But the specs have not changed at all. So I keep my old machine. Looks like Apple does not need the money.
It's really hard to justify buying a "new" Mac Pro that is a 4 year old design at this point. I keep hoping that Apple will announce a revamp but the days since the last release keep climbing and best guesses have the inside date at mid to late 2016 at best.
Since my creative applications are mostly subscription based and cross platform, software costs aren't so much of an issue anymore....
I have been using the Mac since '85. I have not used Windows since XP (job required) but I still get hives when I am around an MS box. Still this may be the future.
Sad Mac. No happy gong.
I love OS X and dislike the desktop hardware.
7.5 years later, and my 2008 Mac Pro is still going strong.
http://blog.greggant.com/post/58331227038/recommended-mac-pr...
I'm in the market for a powerful desktop and I considered getting a 2012 Mac Pro. It would be awesome if the 2016 Mac Pro was a tower design. Alas, we can only dream.
Now that we have so many pixels to push, graphics acceleration has become a key part of the computer, and apple's offerings are anemic at best on mbp.
OS X has also become much more "walled garden"-like and fisher price feeling. With every release they become less developer friendly.
I'm moving to Linux as much as I can and when I finally had to get new hardware, I got the top of the line Inspiron 7559 and replaced the hd with an ssd. It's better than any mbp hardware you can buy today (with the exception of the trackpad. Apple cannot be beat with that!) at half the cost!
http://www.dell.com/en-us/shop/productdetails/inspiron-15-75...
Developers are why Apple was successful in the first place, I hope they start making serious tools again instead of toys.
I have been waiting for a 2016 refresh on their developer edition, anyone heard any news about it?
For me personally, and I think a lot of us, design is more/just as important as performance at the threshold these machines have reached. I work better and enjoy the feeling of using well designed tools.
That's a pretty big issue for me, considering how much I use my trackpad (even as a shortcut-and-if-possible-vim-bindings guy)!
Sure, I sit in the coffee shop with it sometimes, but I don't drink lattes (americano usually), and I don't just browse the web. My rMBP is more than a toy, and I get real work done on it every day.
I'd wager there are a lot more like me than the "pro" user described in this article. Now you tell me: who should Apple cater to more?
A few years ago getting enough memory together to run a VM or two might be the largest issue/load. But now memory is cheap and cloud/containers are popular. Containers have breathed new life into my 5 year old machine.
In my experience, base models hold a higher percentage in resale than customized or upgraded machines.
It isn't mutually exclusive to cater to both audiences.
> who should Apple cater to more?
That's the real question, and of course we will all be biased here. For someone like you it's fine that you can't (for example) get the latest GPU technology, but for someone that works on digital effects that is a very real issue.
It is a fact that Apple used to cater to such audience before, and the whole point of the article is if Apple is leaving that audience behind or not.
I hate the MB. The key travel is way too short and have seen no signs of adjusting. The lack of expansion ports is criminal. Just one more. It's the little things--like no led to indicate charging/charged. I use it for testing for work, but that's about it.
My MBA plugs/docks into my cinema display. Keyboard and mouse are plugged into the display USB hub. Ethernet on the other USB port. When I travel it's super light.. no complaints.
Just for reference, the MBP was just too heavy and hot. Lugging around the 15" in a backpack around airports all day was not comfortable.
I wasn't happy with the Lenovo laptops, so I went Apple. Now? Not sure where to go.
I don't know that there is a solution besides build-your-own or something. It's in the company's DNA and you end up taking the good with the quirks. Just like MS and it's need to require weird inconsistent software upgrades that are as much "change for change sake" as being actually useful. Or any version of Linux and it's weird GNU/FSF cabal that seems to have a corner on certain important tools but doesn't like it when anyone outside the cabal works on something.