Your macbook has the word pro in it's name, but that 13 pro is clearly a stopgap until the 14 comes, and I expect it to be phased out.
Perhaps. My guess is that the 14" will offer other performance benefits over the 13" and will carry a higher price tag. Maybe the 13" MBP stays, maybe it doesn't. Doesn't really matter either way. It's a great machine and anyone that gets one, understanding the RAM, IO, etc, will be quite happy with it. I've been. And even if they get rid of the 13" when the 14" comes out ... so what? The 13" MBPs out there won't just suddenly vaporize. They'll continue to be the responsive, performant machines they are today.
We've all learned to ignore the 'Pro' in the name. It really just means 'more features or performance than the not-Pro'. It's subjective at best and beyond being 'better' than the non-Pro, doesn't offer any objective promises. Even my mother-in-law doesn't care if the name carries the 'Pro' moniker, she just wants to know if a machine can do what she needs, and what the benefits are of moving up or down the tiers.
On the other hand, this iMac is a whole new design here to stay for a decade(?).
Are we talking about performance/user experience? Or industrial design? I'm not sure how this relates.
Btw what is a high end professional?
Apologies for the ambiguous terminology. I used that term to indicate people whose work is done primarily on their computer, and that the demands placed on that computer are atypical (high end) when compared to the average computer user. It's not meant as a comparative judgment between people of different careers; the context is strictly around the performance demands and capabilities of the computer required to engage in professional activity.
The problem is about a covert price increase when their costs went down.
Oh. I'm not familiar with Apple's costs on these different machines. I wasn't aware that information had been published. Can I get a link to that?
In any event, it doesn't matter. For entry level machines, they provide more than enough functionality and intel-crushing performance than one could've possibly asked for on this first pass, and the prices are actually quite low when compared to the 'competition' (such as it is) out there. Cost to the consumer certainly went down. If the cost to Apple also went down, that's a win-win.
With Intel one could buy any combination of strong cpu/lots of memory. Now with this m1 imac, if you need more memory only, you have to pay up for an iMac with not just a faster chip but a bigger screen. Paying up and "enduring" a faster chip is one thing, but having to use a 30 or even 32 display all day just to have more memory.. ridiculous.
Please link me this product line you're talking about. I haven't been able to find it.
And, yes. When everything was its own discrete chipset, running communications/data across multiple BUSes to get anything done, flexibility was built into the process. And we ended up with the many-years-stagnant, throttle-inducing flamethrower meltdown CPU offerings from Intel.
It remains to be seen what sorts of options we'll have when we get into the newer products.
And I agree that the sheer performance of m1 is enough for a lot of things, yet you still call those entry-level. M1 is at least upper-middle level, but intentionally handicapped.
It's Apple's designation. They specifically refer to the M1 as the low power option in their press releases. They also replaced only the lowest end machines in their product line up with the M1 variants. All the mid to high end Intel options are still there, yet to be replaced. By definition, this categorizes the current M1 offers as entry level.
Just because the 'low', 'mid', 'high' options Apple Silicon SOC bring to the table will completely re-adjust what consumers expect from personal computers moving forward ... just because the 'low' M1 competes directly, and favorably with top of the line i9 options out there, doesn't require we call it a high end or even mid range option. That's an arbitrary comparison to Intel, which isn't meaningful to Apple or fair to its consumers.
When all is said and done, there will be multiple tiers of performance from Apple's SOC machines. The least expensive of these will be the entry level machines, and it looks like, for the foreseeable future, those entry level machines will cleanly outperform anything else in their class, or even a class or two above them. That just means the upcoming mid and high end machines will set the bar that much higher, for everyone.
This is a good thing. It will set fire to the toes of other chip manufacturers.
