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Apple to Release Updated MacBook Air and Mac Pro Models This Week?
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OK - it's not a BTO option, which is what I was looking at.
So, after buying the Mac Pro, you spend another $1200 (same price as an Imac) to get the graphics card that you need, and toss the ATI one that Apple made you buy with the machine.
By the way, Newegg is selling the "Quadro 4000 for Mac 2 GiB" for $700....
ps: Lots of negative comments about the drivers for this card at Apple http://store.apple.com/us/reviews/H3314LL/A?mco=MjA4MDI0MTA
maxed out 13" MBA for me... and my wife will get my old maxed out 11" MBA
Well she did just get a kick ass maxed out iMac last month.....16GIG of RAM, really I ask you - probably only needs 2...
Well she did just get a kick ass maxed out iMac last month.....16GIG of RAM, really I ask you - probably only needs 2... 
So is best better than ultimate or is better better than best but not better than ultimate? I always thought that you can't get better than best. So given that, Ultimate would be the worst, better would be better than ultimate and best would be the best. I always thought Apple made things easy.
ultimate = best, so the low end and high end models are the same, and the middle one doesn't exist.
You should still check your local Apple Store as they sometimes carry a limited qty of upgraded Macs in stock, but in general any type of upgrade will require ordering. They won't customize it for you on the spot (and in most cases can't since it has to be built that way).
They can at least give us fermi GPU so we can use Premier's mercury engine on account of their FCPX fiasco. ...something. I'll have to start telling my video clients to buy Windows boxes otherwise. The performance is not even close and no-one is ditching their old editors for FCPX (not yet anyway).
I don't really get everyones mentality with this. A lot can happen in a couple years. I completely agree there are some key functionalities that are currently missing from FCPX like multi cam, but there is a lot of potential as Apple addresses these issues. Many of the complaints about all the features dealing with organizing their media being gone just doesn't make sense to me. Yes there is going to have to be an adaptation in your work flow, but you will have to adapt your work flow to Avid or Adobe's offerings as well. Granted this will likely be a very similar work flow to what you have now. I thought Apple's move of allowing FCPX and FCP7 to be side-by-side was a good move to allow studios to continue working with 7 while they experiment with X to build a new work flow around the new technologies. I'm guessing in the next several months Apple will be working with their video partners to bring support for products to make tape->file ingestion and file->tape output work easily for FCPX. When the new Mac Pro launches, hopefully soon, it will definitely have Thunderbolt ports. I'm sure there will be new products from the major vendors that will address many of the problems that we are currently having with FCPX, above and beyond what Apple has already said they will be addressing in future updates.
Now to the more relivant to this thread part of my post. I'm really curious how they are going to work with Thunder Bolt on the Mac Pro. I'm wondering if they will route the graphics card output over the PCIe bus to the Thunderbolt ports. I think this would make more sense with how Thunderbolt works. If so it's bad news for those who are waiting on this to hopefully get a GPU bump from the cards that will be in the new models. However Apple will likely have 2009 - 2010 versions of those GPU's also so you should still be good. I'm guessing that All GFx card options will offer dual display port output, there will be 2 Thunderbolt ports that the GFx card will route to, and if you add an upgraded GPU or additional GPU's they will be routed to those 2 display ports allowing for you to push a daisy-chained display. It will be interesting to see how Apple deals with Thunderbolt and display output on a Mac Pro.
p.s. I'd still take advantage of the "switcher" campaigns just because they are really good deals. But in 2 years time I think most people will be starting to migrate their new work over to FCPX.
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It's very close to being a dealbreaker for me as well. My wife's MacBook is getting very long in the tooth -- if they re-add the backlit kb, I'm gonna upgrade her to an Air.
If there is an updated MP (I HIGHLY doubt it) then it will come with the current processors. This really smells like another bogus linked rumor.
cheers
JohnG
Then what are the part numbers that are referred to? Could these be for the Mini instead of the Pro?
Thats what I don't think Apple understand. Its not just that professionals will have to wait for the missing functionality, it is how un-professionally the whole thing has been handled.
People in business need to have some faith that the provider they build their future on will still support them in a few years time, and apple have shown that not to be the case. When you get into that part of the market things get hard and boring, and Apple have just lost interest.
Much as we might all bag Microsoft at least they provide long term support even for software solutions long past their end of life. Avid and Adobe have shown a much better understanding of this.
As I have said elsewhere, I have no problem with Apple focusing on the consumer market - but the professional way to approach that would have been to announce, even just 6 months ago, that FCP 7 would disappear, and FCPX will not be up to prime time, and give professionals a chance to plan their future.
Instead, we have the situation where we have no idea when or if FCPX will ever be usable, and no way to expand current facilities on the still functional FCP7. It is a product release based on marketing spin, not on advancing a professional community.
If I have to go and learn a new interface, I'm might as well learn one from a company that has shown commitment to professional support of an admittedly niche market.
Just as Apple have deserted the professional market for business purposes, professionals will desert Apple for the same reasons - a business choice. I'm not keen on it, and I would much prefer to stay working in a Mac environment - but this is business decision. It is also part of that forward planning that by moving to Avid or PP I will be moving to a solution that does not need a Mac if things get that bad.
I really hope Apple don't sign the final death warrant for their pro market with this Mac Pro refresh. What with Final Cut Pro X, a seriously cut down Lion Server and no XServe, i think this may be the final nail in the coffin for the Apple Pro market
I believe the Pros left Apple. Not the other way around. if Xserve sold well it'd still be sold today. And I know a lot of pros (in the multimedia/TV/post production/etc industries) that just just love FCPX. Of cause they are not swapping to it now. That's silly. But they really like what it has to offer and are mucking around with it in the few mins a day they have free to see how they might integrate it into new jobs.
the tiny tiny % who hate FCPX cry really cry loud everywhere. But all the people who like it just buy it and use it. And feel no need to brag about their like of the software. They just use it. And act like adults unlike the haters.
So my point. I think The pros left Apple. Well some are leaving. And you just can't keep trying to sell a product no one wants. So on the outside it looks like Apple is pulling Pro support. But in reality they are just remove the products/services the pros no longer want (in enough quantities to make a profit).
Yes FCPX is not perfect. But it's getting there. I've used it and it's not that bad honestly.
And yes this might be the nail in the coffin for the Apple pro market. But the Pros made the coffin and the nails and are some pros are trying to hammer them in. Apple looks more consumer/prosumer oriented. Yes maybe but they are just (selling what makes more profit).
Apple have been like this for 10 years now. You know when Apple will release something the second it is released and not before. And their support of EOL'd products has not changed in the same 10 years. You act like it's like "woah Apple is acting this way all of a sudden". They've done it for ages. The pros/prosumers should know this by know. If not then their loss for not being informed. And they should take this into account when planning their long term strategies.
So saying this is a big problem now is total BS and I'll have none of it. If you didn't know this and are a Pro - then you need to go back and learn "how Apple works 101".
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White MB, RIP...though for an extra 100-200$, the pro can be yours...I never understood that pricing methodology
Well there are TONS of people who just buy Macs because they're "cool" and they have the money. Take your average, middle class american family.
The dad is going to get a Pro and the wife and kids all get MacBooks. Heck, every time I go to an Apple store I see a woman and her daughter looking at the regular MacBooks. People don't think in terms of (only 200 more), they think in terms of (oh that looks nice, the 200 dollar more one with aluminum probably does too much for me, I'll just get the pretty white one).
Seriously; logically speaking, most of the people who buy MacBooks can shovel out the extra 200 to get the Pro. Money isn't the reason, the reasoning is the actual "idea" behind the MacBook and the MacBook PRO. "Normal" people just won't go for it. There's no reason to.
Goddammit where's my 15" MBA. Still nothing I guess.
Then again... now I am using XCode for development and it hogs so much CPU I might actually need a quad core i7. So where's the disk-less MBP, or at least one where the DVD can be officially swapped for a secondary SSD?
I don't use FCPX nor would I know how - but if it doesn't offer the features people need, or is a regression over the previous version, why do people just not keep using the previous version? Why all the whining?
Then again... now I am using XCode for development and it hogs so much CPU I might actually need a quad core i7. So where's the disk-less MBP, or at least one where the DVD can be officially swapped for a secondary SSD?
I don't use FCPX nor would I know how - but if it doesn't offer the features people need, or is a regression over the previous version, why do people just not keep using the previous version? Why all the whining?
True, but remember when Apple did all their OS X demos on Mac Pro towers? Nowadays, they're almost always iMacs or even laptops. There's probably a lot of things Apple is finding they can do now with "consumer" hardware that 8+ core monsters aren't needed for. I don't think the Mac Pros are going away anytime soon, but I won't be surprised if they get less and less urgent attention from Apple as the years go on.
I wouldn't say dealbreaker, but it's a pretty big deal to me, as I assume it is to anyone who frequently works in dark or dim environments (backstage, in bed, in classrooms, in the audience for presentations, on airplanes or trains or cars, dark server rooms, laboratories, etc.). Yeah, it's important. If I were on the fence it might be the clincher for me if it did have backlight keys.
Umm, so I think we sort of agree then?
Apple is not interested in professional markets, so if you need to plan a future for your business then you should look at their track record and plan a work flow that does not rely on them.
Yet "value for money" doesn't come into your calculations at all. Actually, that's what "normal" ie, rational, people do when they shop.
