Great addition, this is the best argument in the thread. The laptop business is growing exponentially, the desktop business... Is not.
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Apple needs a MID Tower.....
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Great addition, this is the best argument in the thread. The laptop business is growing exponentially, the desktop business... Is not.
If you want a midi tower, get a bleedin PC thing!! I'm sure you'll be over the moon!! Cause you can tweak and customize the accordingly... But how mnay PC boards can handle 32Gb of RAM and Dual Xeon's?
The MacPro is aim at Professional users (aka Power users) who'll utilises whatever power it can output, for those who need it, they'll have a render farm in the net room with fully air-conditioned environments!! Who needs kind of power? People who actually do constructive work!!
You might think server technology is a overkill but have you tried processing production video at a broadcasting quality with multiple channels of audio, sound clips for effects and special FX added on top? I'm guessing few have...
I can tell you Core2Duos can't handle it, it's a bleedin nightmare!! We're talking days of processing here, if not weeks. It's just ridiculous!! The processors simply can't handle the masses of data, there are bottlenecks everywhere!! Because it's actual video, it's not something the GPU can handle. So upping the GPU would have little to no effect!!
The rest of you's who own a MacPro so you can play games, watch or download junk ain't really making any uses of the extreme processing and expansion power the MacPro can utilize. For you guys, 90% of the MacPro is completely wasted. Might as well be Folding@Home while you tinker with your BMX.
The MacPro is aim at Professional users (aka Power users) who'll utilises whatever power it can output, for those who need it, they'll have a render farm in the net room with fully air-conditioned environments!! Who needs kind of power? People who actually do constructive work!!
You might think server technology is a overkill but have you tried processing production video at a broadcasting quality with multiple channels of audio, sound clips for effects and special FX added on top? I'm guessing few have...
I can tell you Core2Duos can't handle it, it's a bleedin nightmare!! We're talking days of processing here, if not weeks. It's just ridiculous!! The processors simply can't handle the masses of data, there are bottlenecks everywhere!! Because it's actual video, it's not something the GPU can handle. So upping the GPU would have little to no effect!!
The rest of you's who own a MacPro so you can play games, watch or download junk ain't really making any uses of the extreme processing and expansion power the MacPro can utilize. For you guys, 90% of the MacPro is completely wasted. Might as well be Folding@Home while you tinker with your BMX.
Thank you for proving our point. iMac is weaksauce, Mac Pro is overkill for most people. Apple has a HUGE gap in their product line for the people who want a reasonably fast computer to use for a wide variety of tasks, with the ability to keep it up to date.
I don't think anyone is saying "God, the Mac Pro sucks, Apple shouldn't make it", they're just wishing Apple would offer something to fit their needs. Personally, I needed the Mac Pro for the reasons you state, but I definitely see where the midrange/gamer users are coming from.
I have a Mac Pro simply for it's 4TB of storage space. I don't have to attach external drives to thing to store massive videos and music I buy in iTunes. To me that is good enough reason to own one. And yes, get ready to cringe, when I am not using it to sync my iPhone or watch the X-Files, it is crunching numbers for Seti@home. I'm find with my $3000 Mac Pro being used for what it is doing. I'm also fine using the 23" ACD for watching Chips Season 2. It still has the 2GB ram it came with because I don't need anymore for what I'm doing with it and I'm fine with that too.
Life is good with some great music, a nice movie or two and a Mac Pro.
Nah, just a chequered roof.
Well, one of the areas I mentioned was music production, and personally I don't find the iMac particularly suited as a digital audio workstation. I have an iMac 24" but I certainly don't use it for that.
One, you want the ability to stick a full sized PCI card into the computer. Two, you want to distance yourself from fan noise (some even stick the computer inside a soundproofed box), which is a no-go with the iMac where the fan is right in your face. Three, you want a huge amount of screen real estate (1920x1200 is nowhere near adequate) because you need a complete overview of a number of audio and midi tracks, the mixer and numerous instrument and FX device panels. I myself have a 3-screen setup with a total of 4960x1600 pixels, and even then there are plenty of windows and panels I have to keep minimized. I guess you could get an iMac 24" and plug another 24" monitor into it, but if you're even remotely concerned about a symmetrical and otherwise aesthetically pleasing setup you're not gonna want that. So the mid-tower form factor is the preferable one.
The thing about music production is that you need a professional setup to get somewhere, but no matter how talented you are you won't be seeing any money in ages, so you're on a budget. It's not just the computer and its peripherals you need, you also need MIDI controllers, monitor speakers, external audio interface and tons of expensive software. So where can you cut costs? Well, one good place to start is to not buy a Mac Pro. Here in Sweden, the Mac Pro starts at 23,995 SEK ($3668), and that's just the bare-bones default configuration -- you'll easily be at 30,000 SEK ($4587) before you check out from the Apple Store. Meanwhile you can get the middle brother of the Dell Precision series (Dell's 'pro' lineup), the T5400, which starts at 10,360 SEK ($1584) and for that you get a quad-core Xeon 2,33 with 2GB RAM and dual NVidia 256 MB video cards, which is more than adequate for the task at hand. Throw in some more RAM and an extra hard drive and you're still only at HALF the STARTING price of the Mac Pro. And that's the upper range Precision series; if you go for the consumer Inspiron series you can get four of them for the price of a Mac Pro.
Then consider that these guys have to replace their machines at least once every 3 years, so it's more than just swallowing one very tough purchase, you're gonna have to do it again and again.
I work in music software and I can tell you that I've seen first hand quite a few in our user base who have actually switched from Mac to PC over this issue. All the software they need is cross-platform anyway, and for the money saved on not buying a Mac Pro they can afford all that other stuff they need for music production - the dual screens, the monitor speakers, the works. So they ask themselves if they love the Mac so much they're willing to sell their car or move back in with their parents, and if the answer is no, they reluctantly abandon the Mac and take the PC route. And that's not really what Steve and his fans want, is it? People in a notoriously Mac-loving crowd (=musicians) switching to PC?
I happen to like glossy displays, but I will spot you this one because I know many who work with photos, graphics and video do not.
Also true, but remember even the Mac Pro also offers the same ATI X2600 and nVidia 8800 technologies (admittedly with faster clocks, but not tremendously so).
And I am pretty confident a Mac Mid-Tower would have the same mobile CPUs and GPUs. Desktop components are cheap, but they are hot and they are power-hungry. That means larger cases with louder active ventilation (fans) to keep cool and both don't seem to mix well with Apple's design aesthetics. And trying to be seen as a "green" company is not helped by using machines that draw hundreds of watts of power and convert most of it to waste heat.
Now see, here in the US, a Dell Workstation is about $1000 more then a Mac Pro in identical configuration. We use HP's at work and I have a machine that is identical to a Mac Pro in every single category and component - and it retails for $7,200, which is $1,500 more then what the Apple Store wants.
But, in the end, the same thing would apply with a Mac Mini-Tower. If it is $1500 in the US, it would be 15,000 SEK ($2322) because, for whatever reasons, the price of Apple products in Sweden are much higher then they are in the US.
With respect, if you need to replace a quad-core desktop machine every three years, you should be buying a Mac Pro (base or tricked-out) as it will last longer thanks to having more CPU power, more RAM, more HDD expandability and better network throughput which, all together, offers better performance that lasts longer.
Wow.
I'm guessing the issue with the prices is that Dell and Apple handle the weak dollar in diametrically opposite ways. A few years ago the US dollar was worth 12 SEK. Now it's down to 6 SEK. Normally this should result in cheaper American products in Sweden, and with Dell this holds true -- their prices have been dropping continuously. But Apple's prices in SEK have stayed the same as when the dollar was worth twice as much.
In other words, Dell is taking the opportunity to peddle more machines overseas, while Apple is taking the opportunity to squeeze out higher profits from their overseas sales. Apple could have used the opportunity to increase their market share overseas, but they got greedy and short-sighted.
It is also possible Apple sees limited sales opportunities in Sweden and therefore wants to extract the maximum revenues they can from that market.
Or Apple might have limited stock that they can ship to Sweden, and therefore keep prices high to force demand down to match the available supply.
Or perhaps Dell has done deals or something that lowers their costs to operate/ship to Sweden and Apple has not.
It does not just have to be raw greed on Apple's part. They make 35% margin here in the US, after all, which is amazingly high for computers.
Glossy hin, Glossy her, the iMac AL Screens are crap, especially the 24in versions. It´s good for youtube and iChild apps but gets squashed by any 400 USD screen and totally useless for more demanding tasks.
The only place this is disputed is here by the acolytes of the Apple.
Apple as a green company is of course a marketing joke.
Potent desktop cpus can be had with a 65W TDP. The Mac Pro has a >1KW PSU but idles at around 176 W. A toned down midi version would come in at 120-130W idle. So where are the few hundred W w/o the 280GTX at full blast?
Certainly, there is a huge gap between the iToy and the Mac Pro.
A lot of people would like processing power in between and not pay premium for server hardware in the 1 CPU MP configuration.
Hi there!
As Sweden is a EU member country you can import duty-free from the continent. I am not aware of the current exchange rate but I assume the Krona has fared well recently.
It's not exponential growth. Don't exaggerate.
http://blogs.zdnet.com/ITFacts/?p=14336
"Apple is brand at No. 6, a position the company has held since Q3 2007. The companys total fourth-quarter PC shipments grew 39.3% YoY, with equally strong growth for its desktop and notebook businesses"
IDC think that the desktop:laptop ratio at the end of 2008 with be 1:1 (or 50:50). If your desktop offerings are poor, you're excluding 50% of the market. I don't expect this to change significantly in the next 5 years. Besides, I'd bet much of the growth in the laptop segment is because of cheap 'netbooks', an area where Apple is entirely absent.
Apple's laptop strategy excludes them from the boon in laptop sales, and their desktop strategy is alienating a major part of the market. It'll be a long time before desktops become 'niche'. If that does happen, it'll potentially mean less money for all OEMs - rather than buy a desktop for home and laptop, people will just buy a laptop. If Apple re-entered the space properly, with exciting hardware innovations, they could be responsible for a rejuvenation of the market in their favour.
Swedes are (statistically) ultra-wealthy and enjoy (statistically) about the highest per capita income in the world. Of course, Apple tries to extract the living ***** out of the beautiful blondes.
No, no... the blondes are still here, but the statistics are from the 1960's. Last time I checked, Sweden had dropped to the 19th spot in income per capita. We also have a ludicrous 25% sales tax, so we don't need the manufacturers to jack up the prices, the government takes care of that thankyouverymuch.
The thing about our supposed wealth was that we came out of WWII completely unscathed and our factories were standing ready to deliver the goods for rebuilding the rest of Europe, which was basically a pile of rubble. That advantage sustained us all the way through the 50's, 60's, 70's and part of the 80's, but since the mid-90's, Sweden's economy has been mediocre.
As for the blondes, you can have'em. People tend to prefer exotic beauties, and in Sweden, blonde hair is the least exotic feature of all. You guys probably wanted Rachel on Friends, but we wanted Monica. I'll trade you a million blondes for a million brunettes... provided that they're all reasonably tall, like our blondes. No midgets!
Well... define "limited". It's a small country of 9 million, but also one of the most gadget and hitech-crazy. We have the highest broadband penetration in the world and everyone and his grandma is online 24/7. Per capita, it could potentially be one of Apple's best markets.
Well... all I know is that Dell assembles all their machines in Ireland so technically it's not really an American product per se (Asian parts assembled in Ireland with an American logo slapped on). But I was under the impression that Apple does the same thing... anyway, Ireland is some kind of European central for Apple products. When I buy an iPod or a Mac Mini from the Swedish Apple store, it's shipped from Ireland. I'd imagine the same goes for Germany, UK, France, Italy, Spain and the rest of EU.
Could it be just a major part of the Wintel market?
After all, if Apple is seeing 40% growth in both desktops and laptops, their desktop offerings must not be as poor as is claimed by some? Especially since Apple's strongest retail growth is in machines that cost more then $2000 - a retail market they currently control two-thirds of?
A common argument is that Apple must offer a mid-tower because Windows users predominately have mid-tower models and therefore Apple must have one too in order to appeal to them to switch.
And yet what is the model Apple created specifically to attract Windows users? The Mac Mini. And Apple has done very little to it since they created it. About the only product Apple gets more stick about then the mid-tower is the Mini. A large number of Windows mid-tower owners evidently seem to want to use the Mini to become introduced to OS X and the entire Apple experience, even though it's small and it cannot be expanded. All they want is something newer then technology that wasn't cutting edge 24 months ago inside of it.
Even in the Wintel world, mid-towers are starting to fall by the wayside - especially amongst corporate customers. More and more companies are moving to small form factor PCs because they take up less space, draw less power and more then meet the needs of their users. Even retail Wintel boxes are getting progressively smaller over time. I travel a good bit for work and all my suppliers (and these are big companies with thousands of desktops) are all either using SFF machines or are replacing their towers with SFF machines to a very heavy extent.
The biggest market going forward for mid-towers will be the enthusiast market who either build them themselves or want them for very narrowly-focused purposes - like gaming or media center rigs. Those who build it themselves do so for both the challenge and the labor savings, so an Apple mid-tower would not appeal to them since Apple builds it for them and therefore no labor savings can be obtained. And those who want a gaming or media-center rig will be disappointed both by the lack of high-performance gaming cards available and Apple's desire to serve media content from the web - not a big box of disks in the closet.
Well Apple ships around 12 million Macs a year, but I cannot find any breakdowns of where they go, so I do not know how well Apple sells in Sweden.
All Macs are built in China. Apple may use Ireland as a shipping depot, but they do not assemble them there. So perhaps since Dell assembles EU-sold product in the EU, they get tax breaks or something that allows them to sell lower then Apple, which imports assembled product from China.
You make too many assumptions, my friend. An iMac minus the flat panel display minus the engineering costs involved in building such a unique case should be cheaper to build than the iMac itself. If sold at the same price as the iMac, this new hypothetical machine would be in the price range consumers are looking for and the margin would be higher.
Additionally, to use your point, $1499 to $1699 is still more attractive to budget-minded consumers than $2299 for the SP MacPro.
That only means that they are successful in reaching their target audience. They, however, still aren't targeting the biggest audience: the consumer oriented mid-tower.
I though Krona was a Mexican beer.
After a few beers, it probably is.
Corona is Latin and Spanish for 'crown'. Unsurprisingly, that's what 'krona' means as well.
Apple would never sell a mid-tower with iMac specs for the same price as an iMac. You think people riot now about a $2399 Mac Pro, they'd really riot for a $2199 mid-tower with the same specs as the 3.06GHz iMac without the monitor.
The case is likely one of the cheaper parts of the iMac. If they pay more then $50 for it, they're being robbed.
And the LM240WU1 24" LCD in the iMac has a wholesale cost to Apple of no more then $300. So you'd be looking at a savings of around $400 ($300 for the panel and $100 for the margin on that panel) that means:3.06GHz DC / 2.26GHz QC Model - $1699-1799
2.80GHz DC Model - $1399-1499
Which is exactly what I have been saying these machines would cost. And is exactly anywhere from $400-800 more then many who advocate a mid-tower expect it to cost - or even demand it should cost.
And considering the HP LP2465 display - with the same panel as the iMac - costs around $600, it is arguably cheaper to buy the iMac.
The biggest audience may not be the best audience to target for Apple. It may come across as a cliché, but Apple has been the one to innovate, not imitate. If they build a mini-tower just like every other Wintel mini-tower, what sets them apart? OS X?
Well, if OS X is why people buy a Mac, then they'll be at least somewhat inclined to buy the Mac form factors being offered - just like many are now.
But the Mac Pro and MacBooks aren't particularly innovative either. The Pro may be a little neater on the inside than its PC counterparts, but its form factor isn't exactly revolutionary. If foolish 'think different' pride is a valid reason to not offer a particular product, then Apple should discontinue pretty much all of their current offerings.
The one innovative concept they do have in their computer lineup is the iMac, and it's also the product that's closest to the Mac heritage -- it's the 2008 interpretation of the original Macintosh. Then again you might also argue that the iMac is nothing but an extremely bulky tablet PC minus touchscreen.
I think the Mac Pro is quite innovative, especially in being clean.
I miss the old IBM PS/2 models because they were so clean and tidy. Everything plugged into something. No rails. No cables. No wires. It was all just really nice.
Looking at the Mac Pro, it reminds me of the...elegance...of the PS/2's innards. And that is what I love about Apple and OS X - it's elegant. Elegant to look at and elegant to work with. Heck, even the old PowerMac G4s were pretty easy to work on, even with their cables everywhere.
I do hope that Apple moves to SATA optical drives in the Mac Pro and makes those bays direct-connect like they do their HDD drives. That way we lose two more sets of cables. Everything is well-organized and easy to access.
And I think the MacBook Pros and MacBooks are innovative. They have built in cameras. The MBP has a backlit keyboard for use in low light conditions. They have real FireWire - not the four-pin un-powered version. They don't need grills everywhere with high-speed fans to keep cool so they generally run much quieter then Wintel laptops I have used (and I have used scores of models from almost a dozen Tier One Wintel OEMs).
I miss the old IBM PS/2 models because they were so clean and tidy. Everything plugged into something. No rails. No cables. No wires. It was all just really nice.
Looking at the Mac Pro, it reminds me of the...elegance...of the PS/2's innards. And that is what I love about Apple and OS X - it's elegant. Elegant to look at and elegant to work with. Heck, even the old PowerMac G4s were pretty easy to work on, even with their cables everywhere.
I do hope that Apple moves to SATA optical drives in the Mac Pro and makes those bays direct-connect like they do their HDD drives. That way we lose two more sets of cables. Everything is well-organized and easy to access.
And I think the MacBook Pros and MacBooks are innovative. They have built in cameras. The MBP has a backlit keyboard for use in low light conditions. They have real FireWire - not the four-pin un-powered version. They don't need grills everywhere with high-speed fans to keep cool so they generally run much quieter then Wintel laptops I have used (and I have used scores of models from almost a dozen Tier One Wintel OEMs).