Yup. My nMP is easily the best machine I've ever had. Dead reliable and no slower today than the day I received it.
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Apple's Newest Mac Pro Turns Four Years Old Today
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Apple dropped the ball on the MZp big time. Hopefully they will make for it on the new one coming up next year.
Completely agree. I know many that love the current Mac Pro. As someone pointed out, the slow adoption of Thunderbolt played a huge part in the "failures" of the current Mac Pro. But I'd say that Apple, in general, dropped the ball on the pro market but they are seeming to double down on it by offering more options than ever before. Hopefully they stay doubled down so there isn't another 4+ year span of stagnation for their pro desktops.
For me I would love the option of matte displays. I hate the glossy one. All the reflections on the screen are so distracting. I like to work on bright environments and my old 30” ACD rocks. No problem at all.I'm really interested to see what the new display will look like.
If they took the Thunderbolt Display and made it 5K, added a better mic, better camera, better speakers and more ports to act as a hub since the new MacBook Pro's only have USB-C. Oh it would be perfect.
I mean, just look at it, it still looks great, even with the huge bezels. The sturdy aluminium design is still lightyears away from that new LG monstrosity.
Edit: And while you're at it, add a HDMI port. It would be great if I didn't have to use a separate display to play on a console once in a while.
A monument to Apple's fall from grace in terms of workable innovation. Phil Schiller's "can't innovate anymore my ass" statement is pure gold.
Of course we still have Tim telling us that Apple has "amazing products in the pipeline". We need a modern day Clara Peller (Wendys) to ask "where's the beef?"
I no longer have any expectation that Apple will create a new product category or completely reimagine an existing product category. I just content myself with using their tried and true products which are still quite good.
Of course we still have Tim telling us that Apple has "amazing products in the pipeline". We need a modern day Clara Peller (Wendys) to ask "where's the beef?"
I no longer have any expectation that Apple will create a new product category or completely reimagine an existing product category. I just content myself with using their tried and true products which are still quite good.
Apple's biggest mistake was getting rid of Steve Jobs and almost going bankrupt.
The real important questions is: What have they been doing all this time to neglect their Mac product line as long as they have? Were they just trying to convince everyone to switch to an iPad? Were they looking to switch to A series processors and shelved the project? Were they just completely derailed by the new Apple headquarters? ... or were they just so horribly mismanaged to the point they were completely non-productive and out of ideas all this time?
IMO the old ones look even better.
My 30" Cinema Display (last of the matte versions) is 9 years old this week and working flawlessly! It’s a gorgeous piece of kit and makes me hope Apple will make displays for the new Mac Pro and/or Mac mini. This is an area in which they really (can) excel.
Apple can't function well without Steve. It was his company, his vision.
[doublepost=1513703046][/doublepost]I hope they go back to matte finishes - although I doubt it. Everyone prefers their monitor to look like a TV these days.
It was a bold move by Apple and they were clearly trying to innovate, so give them kudos for trying. In the end, the consumer prevailed, as we want PCI slots, HDD and optical bays, upgradeable RAM and even CPU's. I've loved every Mac Pro I've had for those very reasons. If they could take the old design to a new level and make it lighter that would be awesome, but I have a funny feeling it's not going to be what we're expecting. Here's to hoping it's going to be even better than our imaginations.
What was preventing them from issuing updated internals? Intel? Thermal failure? Did they see it as being so powerful that it didn't need to be updated yet?
The Mac mini is another embarrassment. I know it doesn't make them much money, but it does build loyalty that leads to purchasing other products and services. But to leave it without an update for years also led to people not buying anything, myself included (other than a new iPhone).
I upgraded 1.1 to 1.2 and changed CPU to Octo, added 20Gb ram and have 1tb in SSD and 3 disks in Raid. Machine is perfectly fine. Just the graphic card (512MB) I could upgrade.
Problem is I bet it has dimmed a lot since it was new, they also ghost like mad. I have a 23" that I use as a secondary and it certainly has.
They are old and they feel old, although I like the look.
No dimming or ghosting I can perceive. I expect it to die any day but meanwhile it’s a joy to use.
The matte finish is so much more ergonomic (less eye strain) in my experience.
Yeah, in 2014 Apple intentionally pivoted mini to the consumer space. Reducing the thermals to only support 28W CPUs (thus no quad core option), and cancelling the Mac mini Server SKU made that abundantly clear.
Luckily, Intel will finally be releasing 28W quad cores early next year. But Apple will be refreshing the mini, not just dropping in a new CPU. Not sure how much the box will change, but USB 3.1, and Thunderbolt 3 with 5K support, are sure to make an appearance. But what about ports? Will they drop Ethernet/USB A and HDMI like MBP?
RAM will still be soldered unless Apple decides to drop LPDDR3 RAM in favor of DDR4. Moving to DDR4 is certainly a viable option, since the biggest advantage of LPDDR3—80% less power required while in standby—isn’t that relevant to a desktop.
Using DDR4 would also allow an increase in maximum RAM capacity from 16GB to 32GB. But it would mean more engineering for the mini since it would no longer just be the re-packaged internals of a 13” MBP.
The real question is will they do more than just a refresh of a consumer mini? Will they bring back a more capable mini, with DDR4 for a maximum of 32GB of upgradable RAM, higher thermals for 45W CPUs like 6-core coffee lake processors or the new quad cores with the on-package 3Tflop AMD GPUs which are due next quarter.
Only Apple knows.
We can only dream.
That depends very much on the user. I never needed it to stand higher or lower, but yeah I can imagine if you need this option I would get annoying very fast.
Doesn't really make sense when DIY and third party builds are getting more affordable. Apple chooses some very odd components that cost a lot more. For example they could use an AMD 1950X in the new Mac Pro which retails right now at $699 and gets you 16 cores. But they'll likely instead use a $2,000+ Intel 16 core in one of the SKU's. Both parts offer ECC memory so this isn't a Consumer vs Workstation chip comparison.
Essentially they could make it affordable without cutting corners but they wont.
The design snd engineering were outstanding, but their aim was completely wrong. They were supposed to target the power user who needed an extremely capable/expandable machine, and instead they targeted the CEO who wants to have the coolest computer in the building, on his desk.
It's a bit like how every year at the iPhone event, they breathlessly announce "... and we've made this one even thinner!" - and they do the same things with laptops. After a certain point (well in the past) thinner is not a benefit to the target market, it's just an arbitrary goal for the designers every year. On the MBPs, it's particularly galling, because, in pursuit of this arbitrary goal, "how low can you limbo", they've subbed in an inferior (but thinner!) super-fragile keyboard, and thrown out a bunch of useful built-in connections. "But it's thinner!", they cry.
Imagine if, say, Tesla came out every year and said, "congratulations, this year's car is the narrowest car we've ever made, even narrower than last year's model". And people would be like, "uh, we didn't like it when we could no longer get two people side-by-side in the car, why do you keep making them narrower, nobody is asking for this, when will this stop?"
My only problem with the current Mac Pro is it's grossly overpriced given its age. When it came out, fine. 4 years on.. nah. If it were 60-70% of the current price, I would totally buy one as it's still very quick.
Just yesterday I was contemplating the purchase of a TB display, providing I could find one cheap enough.I'm really interested to see what the new display will look like.
If they took the Thunderbolt Display and made it 5K, added a better mic, better camera, better speakers and more ports to act as a hub since the new MacBook Pro's only have USB-C. Oh it would be perfect.
I mean, just look at it, it still looks great, even with the huge bezels. The sturdy aluminium design is still lightyears away from that new LG monstrosity.
Edit: And while you're at it, add a HDMI port. It would be great if I didn't have to use a separate display to play on a console once in a while.
is 8K feasible at this point? I think the LG one is ugly, but it has the same 5K display as the iMac, an isight camera, TB 3/USB-C ports, etc., etc.
Other than use better materials and make is prettier, how can they improve on the LG Ultra Fine?
I think Apple is done with HDMI.
Alright, but we could do with thinner bezels...I'm really interested to see what the new display will look like.
If they took the Thunderbolt Display and made it 5K, added a better mic, better camera, better speakers and more ports to act as a hub since the new MacBook Pro's only have USB-C. Oh it would be perfect.
I mean, just look at it, it still looks great, even with the huge bezels. The sturdy aluminium design is still lightyears away from that new LG monstrosity.
Edit: And while you're at it, add a HDMI port. It would be great if I didn't have to use a separate display to play on a console once in a while.
What exactly is stagnant and neglected? We got the brand-new MacBook in 2015, redesigned MacBook Pro in 2016 right on time, iMac has been kept up to date, we've got the iMac Pro, and there's a new Mac Pro and display next year. Look at the T2 chip, does that count as neglect? The only "stagnation" is the Mac Pro, a mistake they've admitted to, and the Mac mini, which is probably as dead as the iPad mini.