Apple's Mac Pro business practices scare me

[Apple Corps]

wankey - you do not know what the OS COSTS

"...OS costs 129. That certainly doesn't mean Apple can charge a $1000 premium..."

Apple sells it for $129 but the cost of developing it and maintaining it is unknown to us. Also - and this is VERY IMPORTANT - that cost must be absorbed over a much smaller user base.

 

[Beaverman3001]

You are paying for more than hardware, it really isn't a hard concept. Yes it should be updated, but people comparing hardware specs 1 for 1 are missing a huge point.

 

[slughead]

YOU don't have a clue what you are talking about by saying that!!! Yet again blabbing away TOTALLY missing the whole point of a Mac Pro....

It's the public education.

Umm...

I think he was being sarcastic

What IS the point of a Mac Pro? To have a good desktop with OSX. It is not some special machine like so many Apple fans seem to like to believe. It's an incredibly standard machine. On the PC side it would be quite underpowered. I'm really confused as to what you think the "point" of a Mac Pro is. Do you even have one? Have you ever had one? They are the best Macs out there, and at the same time are absolutely nothing special...

Again, sarcasm... but still good points. There are people out there who believe in the fairy dust included in each mac pro (must be what gives off the benzene fumes.

 

[slughead]

Well, I dunno, but, having used Mac products for the last 4 years is refreshing because--unlike a Windows machine--I can actually sit down and get some work done...without having some blinking icon in the system tray, a perpetual antivirus update message, a Windows Update emergency patch, what have you. This drove me nuts.

There are more OS's than just windows and mac

On the contrary, with my old (2006) MacPro 1,1, I can still batch edit 50 Mb Camera Raw files in PS, along with site edits in Dreamweaver or Fireworks files without missing a beat. Yes, this machine cost double what my innumerable PC's did, but it's worth it to me. Maybe because I am female I am more concerned with reliability...specifically, I can work on my MP for long periods of time without distractions or OS "incidents" rearing their ugly heads.

Yep, OS X is great. Wouldn't it be nice to not have to pay twice as much though? Some of us can't afford that. Not to mention it's outdated hardware.

 

[slughead]

Yeah pretty much. All the retail stuff is made by the same factories. The best quality parts are made by the third parties who cater to system builders (they generally use the best PCB's, capactiors, connections blah blah blah), while the companies like Apple and Dell try to get things as cheaply as possible, generally sacrificing quality. Now if Apple allowed system builders to install OSX officially, then they would have something.

EXACTLY!! It so annoys me when people don't get this.

Homebuilders get way better parts for half the price and we don't even have to cut corners--if anything, we get way better stuff.

The first mac pro came with a sony DVD burner (which was a noisy unreliable POS manufactured by NEC), a Maxtor hard drive, and some of the worst RAM on the market.

Not to mention the PSU failures with the fog of death leaking out.

edit: btw: sorry for multiple posts, I probably should've replied all in the same thing, huh?

 

[Wild-Bill]

I used to build all of my own before I totally switched to Mac.

My next computer will be a hackintosh for sure. With the way the Hack scene is maturing, I'll have no problems waiting to update the O/S until a Hack fix comes out for it, or I'll build a vanilla build that has no problems updating and no problems with sleep.

As a matter of fact, I still have my old Coolermaster Stacker case in storage, just begging for some parts. Probably in late 2011 or so I suppose.

 

[macjunk(ie)]

Vote with your dollars.  will either watch this happen and respond or they won't. End of story.

This is where it starts to get screwed up!
People (including me) just don't care! We know that we are paying a lot for the machines and that we could get a cheaper Windows machine...but still we don't care. We manage to convince ourselves by looking at how cool the construction is, post a few good things about the machine on macrumors and feel justified whenever you look at the heap of plastic Dell calls a laptop...

Not sure about the iPad but this is magical! When it comes to buying Apple, most (if not all) do not vote with their dollars and hence Apple continues to be arrogant about their pricing....

When it comes to the Mac Pro..I see two things : 1) Apple's arrogance 2) Apple not listening to customer demands (not new but this is getting on my nerves nowadays)

 

[the editor]

next year windows 8 comes out and they are already admitting they are basing it on the MacOS. I see this as a really good thing and i wouldn't hesitate to switch if windows would go more the MacOS way.

Lets face it, the only reason most people use a mac is because of the OS, i could care less about how it looks or what logo is on there, i just want a machine to work, with a blazing good performance, especially when paying 4000$ for a computer. Instead we get crap videocards, crap HDD space and a crap amount of memory. PEople that buy the current MacPro are either filthy rich, stupid beyond believe or victims because Apple has them hi-jacked, the professional whom has thousands of $ invested (software...etc) and to who the Imac is no option.

Back then Microsoft was looked upon as being the all evil company, but Apples way of doing business is without a doubt worse.

then come the fan-boys claiming the reason why Apple is expensive is because they are stable, because its Apple's wright to charge more than double...because windows sux...etc being a fan-boy is one thing, being straight up retarded is another. The only reason Apple gets away with overpricing is because of these type of idiots claiming to be professionals whom want computer stability in life, while all they get is a basic set-up machine with the name Pro slapped on. And oh yeah...Mac users piss on Dell all the time, but there's more out there than Dell, also the macbooks aren't the best build machines either, and its not as if they are made out of titanium. And oh yeah, Imacs suck even more and don't get me started on Apple's customer support, they aren't the brightest on mother earth either.

Apple has even invented something called "Applecare" meaning they have you pay extra for warranty when in reality you should get a 3year waranty on intel cpu's, HDD, and memory regardless . if you go buy a boxed intel CPU you have a 3 year warranty, if you buy a HDD 3 years...i even believe you have a 5 year warranty on corsair memory and Asus motherboards.

Apple makes you Buy your warranty...hows that of a rip-off, back in the day they called it filching

Only thing good on a Mac is the OS and how it looks

Apple the company that fooled the world

 

[macjunk(ie)]

<...stuff about Dell's customer support>
If you Apple fails, you take it to a store (granted you have one close by) and you will have it fixed in no time. Most of the time you get a little bonus. I know that what they charge is a lot, but believe me, I would pay $2000 any day just so that I don't have to talk to the idiots of Dell support again.
Of course I use my Macs to generate income and I wouldn't be able to work without one (at least not for 8 weeks). Sure you can buy upgrades when it comes to customer support, but they do cost quite a lot for Dells.

Of course Dells are nice computers if you just want to game or do light word processing and watch an occasional movie, but the second my income depended on them, I'd shoot myself.

I hear ya....but you also get to hear horror stories about Apple's customer support. Nothing new here. In fact, it is the Apple story which hurts the most because in all probability, you are comparing the warranty service on a 800$ Dell with a 2500$ Apple!

First of all...AppleCare is not as comprehensive as Dell's warranty. If your laptop fails, you might have drive down to an Apple store and you are completely at their mercy as to when you will be getting the laptop back. Now if your laptop is making money for you...well you are out of luck!

And if by any chance, you dent your Apple laptop (or any other cosmetic damage)..you can kiss the warranty goodbye (since the ridiculously priced AppleCare does not include accidental damage protection).

 

[gaspra]

Only thing good on a Mac is the OS and how it looks

Apple the company that fooled the world

The good thing for Mac OS is not only the looks, but also the native support for X-Windows. To me, I care more about X-Windows. Mac OS also gets better support for commercial softwares, this is why I choose Mac over Linux.

Windows 8? If it just looks like Mac OS, I wouldn't make a switch, too much hassle to run cygwin or virtual machine on Windows.

 

[ghola]

I'm in the market for a desktop PC, and since I'm a hardened Mac user, I decided to look into the Mac pro (I use a macpro at work that runs ridiculously fast, so I'd like to have one for personal use)

At $2899CDN, I get a quad core CPU at 2.66ghz, 3 gig ram, 640gb harddrive and an nVidia GT120. Doesn't come with a screen

It seems a bit too much, so I decided to check up what PC users are paying for the same budget (~4000)

At NCIX.com, you won't believe how behind the Mac Pro is:

Core i7 2.93ghz
12gbs of DDR3 ram
Best Motherboard (it's got a featurelist longer than my thesis)
nVidia GTX 480 1.5gb GDDR3
Intel 40gb SSD (for OS installation)
2x WD Caviar 2TB
Antec P183 case (arguable as good as the Mac Pro's case)

I also threw in some low noise high performance fans for the CPU (Xigmatek's massive 120mm fan for CPU is nearly silent) to match the Mac Pro's silent operation.

The price in total came down to $2451CDN

That's a nearly 500 premium over the best PC desktop money can buy. How can people stand by and let Apple screw you like this?

In short, for 500CDN LESS, I can get a

Core i7 2.93ghz > Xeon 2.66ghz
12gb of DDR3 ram vastly > 4gb DDR3 ram
nVidia GTX480 vastly > nvidia GT120
4tb of HDD > 640gb of HDD
40gb of SSD > *

This must be a joke that Apple thinks it can charge nearly ~3000 on a computer that people can buy for half price. In fact, I may be even over stating it so I went a head a configured a similar desktop PC just to see what's going on with the Mac Pros:

Core i5 2.66ghz ~ Xeon 2.66ghz
4gb of ram > 3gb of ram (seriously Apple?)
nVidia GT220 > nVidia GT120 (they no longer sell 120's)
640gb WD HDD
Same Antec Professional 185 (The most expensive PC Case money can buy)
Corsair 750W

Guess how much the price came down to. I was pretty shocked.

$956CDN

That's right folks. Anyone who is seriously thinking of buying a Mac Pro is either too rich or too ignorant. There is no real difference between a 2.66ghz Xeon processor over a Core i5 2.66ghz. It's only Intel's way to extort more money over business owners who want "security over savings". Please name me a few cases where the retail version of the CPU is vastly inferior to the "server" version that it necessitates a near $800 premium for the same performance.

I'm really shocked by the fact that Apple continues to screw people over in this area, charging a ridiculous $1800 premium for their desktop computers for absolutely no reason. There is no way you can realistically convince me that the OS or the case is worth nearly $2000.

Considering that the Mac Pro is all about performance, it certainly fails to add anything in this department. Using an aging processor, with an obsolete graphics card, a pitiful amount of ram and literally a sad amount of storage.

With their focus shifting to limited portable devices with crude input and usage modes, I fear that Apple may fall into the consumer market completely and forget its roots as a company that made great products for professionals and production designers, and not a company made for gimmicks and touch screens.

Guess the only thing to look at now is the iMac.

Get this as soon as I get a working ATI kext I'll have a system that Apple would charge prolly $100000 for.

 

[the editor]

The good thing for Mac OS is not only the looks, but also the native support for X-Windows. To me, I care more about X-Windows. Mac OS also gets better support for commercial softwares, this is why I choose Mac over Linux.

Windows 8? If it just looks like Mac OS, I wouldn't make a switch, too much hassle to run cygwin or virtual machine on Windows.

if it just looks like mac than people could just stick with windows 7 or XP and customize it like crazy. its as easy as installing software to make a pc "look" exactly like a mac. i'm sure windows is going to do more than just make it look like a mac. but i have a very strong feeling the next windows wont be anything we've seen before and will surprise everyone since they are re-writing it from scratch. i think its also a good thing for windows to just admit that they are looking at the MacOS essentials to come up with a new OS.

 

[VirtualRain]

I think any PC builder/modder who thinks these two are the same, does not take their craft seriously...

Now, if your idea of a home built PC is more like this, than you probably can appreciate the design of the Mac Pro...

http://www.million-dollar-pc.com/systems-2010/twentynine/twentynine.htm

Do you know how many serious PC builders/modders would kill for things like
- Backplane mounted drives?
- Custom motherboard PCIe power traces to the base of the GPU slots?
- Custom lever PCIe card retention mechanism vs plastic tabs?
- Slide out CPU drawer?
- Integrated main-board wifi and bluetooth?
- No visible cables?

The best home built PC's will cost a lot more than a Mac Pro after the person's time invested has been accounted for.

Anyone can slap parts from Newegg or NCIX together in an afternoon. It takes, planning, time, and serious hard work to turn out a computer that's worthy of being listed on million-dollar-pc.com and only those are really in the same league as the Mac Pro in my opinion.

For me, as a former builder/modder, the Mac Pro is a custom built hackintosh that's half the price of what it would cost me in time and materials to build something I'd be happy to represent as my work.

 

[TennisandMusic]

Why would someone kill for a slide out cpu tray, among other things?

That million dollar PC thing is a "normal" build for most decent home builders. That first thing you posted looks like it's from ten years ago. It doesn't take more than an afternoon to do a machine of the posted quality. It's not hard at all. Not sure why you would want to muddle the facts other than to prop up the Mac Pro. Yeah it's nice, but it's not awesome.

 

[wisty]

Here's a quick summary to support my claim (not exactly the same specs but very close)...

Mini Desktops:
Dell Zino HD: Starts at $249
Mac Mini: Starts at $699

wimpy 1.6GHz AMD single-core vs half-decent Intel 2.4GHz dual-core, worse graphics, and worse HDD. Similar RAM. Yes, the Mini is still more expensive. Apple will always be more than Dell.

Yes, Apple is stupid to use Intel on low-end machines. Though it might help power consumption ... I'm not sure.

All-in-ones:
Dell Studio 19 All in One: Starts at $399
iMac: Starts at $1199

Bulldust. The $399 one is nothing like the same specs. The $699 Dell has similar guts to the $1199 iMac, and the screen is a crappy 18 inch, not a half-decent 21.

Yes, the Mac is overpriced. But nowhere near as much as you are claiming.

A better comparism would be to the 79,800 yen Lenovo C305 All-In-One Desktop PC. It's about $870 US.

Low-end laptop:
Dell Inspiron 15: Starts at $399
MacBook: Starts at $999

A Dell Inspiron 14 with a slower processor, Intel graphics (yuck) but more RAM and HDD is $649.99.

High-end laptop:
Dell Studio 17: Starts at $749
MacBook Pro 17: Starts at $2299

A Core i5 starts at $849.9.

OK, I'll only defend the MacBook Pro 17 if you need the battery.

Mobile Phone:
Dell: Starts at FREE
Apple: Starts at $99

No idea what either costs without a plan.

MP3 Player 8GB:
Dell/SanDisk: $59
Apple: $149

iPod Nano has a nice little video camera. On the other hand, the SanDisk draws especial attention to it's "fashionable clip" for the "fashion conscious".

Quad Core Workstation:
Dell T3500: Starts at $1239
Mac Pro: Starts at $2499

Dell T3500 starts off dual-core, with much worse specs. Except the GPU ... Mac Pro needs an update.

So actually, the Mac Pro has the lowest difference at double the price of any other product category Apple makes where the difference can be 3x or more. In fact, if Apple priced the Mac Pro like they do their other products, the entry level quad would be $3600 or so.

Again, this is not news, nor appologetic, it is how Apple positions themselves in the market and you either see the value or you buy something else.

I'd call most Apple gear about 40% overpriced, when you really compare Apples to ... Apples.

You haven't really tried to compare Apple gear to equivalent products. You are definitely leaning towards comparing Apple hardware to cheaper parts ... why bother?

 

[Plutonius]

How are they screwing you ? You are not forced to get one. Get one of the alternatives you mentioned and it sounds like you will be happier.

 

[Plutonius]

next year windows 8 comes out and they are already admitting they are basing it on the MacOS. I see this as a really good thing and i wouldn't hesitate to switch if windows would go more the MacOS way.

Is it backward compatible with older windows ? Does it still have a registry ?

If so, it's more Mac like in UI only and nothing really has changed. Microsoft needs to ditch compatibility with the older windows and needs to get rid of the registry.

 

[mlts22]

Is it backward compatible with older windows ? Does it still have a registry ?

If so, it's more Mac like in UI only and nothing really has changed. Microsoft needs to ditch compatibility with the older windows and needs to get rid of the registry.

+1. MS needs to consider virtualization for all legacy applications, perhaps with some DirectX black magic so legacy gaming still works. Then force all apps that want to run "natively" on the OS to support both ASLR and DEP (so basic code injection attacks won't run).

 

[Vylen]

Why is there a fan on the bottom of that case....?

 

[lemonade-maker]

Why is there a fan on the bottom of that case....?

To make it suck even more.

 

[Tali]

I hear ya....but you also get to hear horror stories about Apple's customer support. Nothing new here. In fact, it is the Apple story which hurts the most because in all probability, you are comparing the warranty service on a 800$ Dell with a 2500$ Apple!

First of all...AppleCare is not as comprehensive as Dell's warranty. If your laptop fails, you might have drive down to an Apple store and you are completely at their mercy as to when you will be getting the laptop back. Now if your laptop is making money for you...well you are out of luck!

And if by any chance, you dent your Apple laptop (or any other cosmetic damage)..you can kiss the warranty goodbye (since the ridiculously priced AppleCare does not include accidental damage protection).

Well I know it's somewhat far fetched, but the point is pretty much that I would choose apple as I depend on it. BUT you are right, you are pretty much at their mercy, which I is something I despise. I do however have the bonus of doing the shopping for the company I work for so I get treated pretty nicely. Never had any problems, even with products that didn't have Apple Care anymore. I was normally offered to call ahead (Superdrive failure, Logic Board etc) and I went for a coffee while they repaired the laptop. I wouldn't want to have that problem without the bonus of having the "you want this order?" card up my sleeve.

But you don't really have to compare it to the MBP, you can just take a nicely specced out 15 inch Dell and compare it to a MB, it's pretty much the same price and the difference is still there. I can't imagine that Dell is always this bad, but this one time really was enough for me ,). Imagine talking to 8 (!) different support members overall and every single one of them says something different and you have to explain the entire problem and email photos every single time. That was horrible

But there is one more thing: Dell and Apple use the same repair service, so I don't know what happens if you mail in your Mac.

 

[Brien]

The Mac Pro isn't really targeted for us home users unfortunately. In the old days plenty of home users bought PowerMacs, but it seems the iMac has eaten up more and more of that segment. I've owned nothing but towers in the desktop realm, but even I am considering a 27" iMac for my next purchase (just as I'm considering a Mac Mini server instead of a new Xserve).

 

[Repo]

There are more OS's than just windows and mac

True, but those are the only two with significant companies backing them up with support and updates; not to mention the two most popular to write software for.

 

[PaulD-UK]

Hi
I've been a self-employed Mac video editor since 1993 when I started with a Quadra 840AV and a £5700 5GB raid. I know many other guys who have done the same - buy a Mac, add some hefty storage, learn the software and get on with it - and make a living

I also know a lot of Avid editors who work for smaller production companies who work on HP workstations and the like.

Without exception NONE of us Mac guys pay a regular tech support contract, and the only outside help needed is with SAN/multi-user networking.

Without exception EVERY Avid company either employs a full time computer specialist to keep the PCs running, or pays for a very considerable up-front on-call maintenace contract - and then they need the SAN/networking support added on, as a regular IT guy won't have that skillset.

So to the cost your Dell or HP workstation add the cost of the guy's salary to keep Windows working in a 100% uptime environment.

To ensure (insure?) 100% uptime in my own edit suite I keep two identical Mac edit computers, but I've not had to use the back-up kit since 1997 (when a Radius 8100 clone went down...).

The converse of this is I'm still using outdated Macs because I don't think the tech spec of the 2009 Nehalem Mac Pros is right yet (because of the obsolete Intel Hartwell ethernet controller - which is data-rate capped).

So in terms of getting my money Apple is close, but no cigar...

 

[kolax]

There's no denying the Mac Pro is an awesome machine.. design and the power + OS X.

But there's no denying either that Apple are taking the **** with their lack of upgrades. This doesn't just apply to the Mac Pro, but the whole line. It takes them so long to update their computer line. New hardware becomes available - yes Apple will want to test it and get OS X to be fully compatible, but you can't be selling outdated hardware months and months down the line at the same premium price as when you introduced it.

I really thought WWDC was going to be more than just iOS 4. I thought they were going to tell the world they still care about the prosumer market and introduce a spanking new Mac Pro with 27" Cinema Display (in glossy and matte finish), along with a new suite of updated prosumer applications.

Why is there a fan on the bottom of that case....?

Looks like it isn't a tower case but one that lies flat.