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Demoted from Mac Pro to iMac or Hackintosh :(
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80%! Are you mad! I'd say 95% shouldn't be look at Mac Pros. You are far too generous my friend.
80%! Are you mad! I'd say 95% shouldn't be look at Mac Pros. You are far too generous my friend.
True.
For most people an i5 or i7 iMac will be fine. You can even attach an external drive or two and not be too put out.
However, for professional work flows, where you want to swap the drives out, add a USB3 card, eSata card, video capture or audio card- you'll need to go Mac Pro.
Also while the i5 or i7 chips in the iMac are pretty powerful, video and audio compressing and preview renders, etc will greatly benefit from the multi-CPU set-up.
For most people though, the high school or college kid learning 3d or editing or audio, the iMac should suffice. When it's time to get paid, and you can't afford production work flows that lead to missed deadlines or painful workarounds, the Mac Pro becomes evident.
Before the i5 and i7 in the iMac this was a MUCH bigger problem as there was a much bigger performance gulf.
One clue that they are not getting rid of the Mac Pro is that they have not added eSATA, FW3200 or USB 3.0 to the iMac. If you want expansion, you'll have to go to the Mac Pro. However they now have the dual drive setup and drives are getting larger and larger. When they finally put light peak (or at the very least USB 3.0) on the iMac, then you'll know that Mac Pro's days are over.
Now that they come in good sizes, the screen's a plus. If I didn't already have a 30" ACD I'd be all over the 27" iMac. That screen is incredible. It's just not as nice as a 30" ACD at the mo.
- It's a mess to upgrade a hard drive in the iMac and it voids the warranty.
- You can't connect 3 or 4 computers with a variety of connectors plus the mandatory Blu Ray drive to the iMac screen.
- When the computer is obsolete, you also have to dispose of the screen.
Even the first generation iMacs aren't obsolete yet by a long shot yet they only had 17" and 20" screens. If you're buying a newer iMac you'll buy one with a larger screen to replace the last one. Since when is blu ray mandatory? You can't even play them on macs! Most people who can afford a $2000 computer will have already have a large HDTV that they'd rather watch films on. I've got a Bluray drive in my hackintosh and I've used the bluray feature once to get a few screengrabs from my favourite films and haven't used it again since.
A dedicated Blu Ray player is mandatory because you can't play Blu Rays in Macs properly.
You can't do it at all on Macs without rebooting into Windows. Incidentally, you can watch blurays on an iMac if booted into Windows and using a USB bluray drive.
I don't understand your beef with bluray being the reason why iMacs are rubbish. I don't know a single person that watches Blurays on their PC or even watches films on their Macs, everyone I know would rather watch them on TV. I know a couple of people who watch TV episodes on their computers whilst doing other things but no one that watches films. Who wants to sit at a desk watching a film on a 27" screen when they could watch a film on a 32"+ TV in their lounge while relaxing on a sofa??
I don't do Windows. I have a Blu Ray drive, and I don't watch movies with it because of OSX's lack of support.
I didn't say Blu Ray is THE reason making iMacs rubbish. I noted MULTIPLE reasons.
There seems to be a good size market between the Mac Mini and the Mac Pro for people who already have monitors and need some level of upgradeability without the full blown Mac Pro level.
For my Lightroom/Photoshop work, I would love a machine with the speed of the i7 iMac that didn't have a screen built in (since I already have 2 24" ACDs). Doesn't need to take as much RAM or have the number of bays that the Mac Pro has. Preferably a much smaller machine.
For my Lightroom/Photoshop work, I would love a machine with the speed of the i7 iMac that didn't have a screen built in (since I already have 2 24" ACDs). Doesn't need to take as much RAM or have the number of bays that the Mac Pro has. Preferably a much smaller machine.
Exactly. People can say that Apple are geniuses at marketing etc. but they just lost my sale. I don't need Xeon processors and ECC ram but I need more expandability and upgradeability than the iMac offers. Not to mention that I hate the iMac screen with a passion.
I'm voting with my dollars and buying an awesome linux box for my work with win7 for games and stray programs I can't run in my main OS.
Apple does not have a machine that meets my requirements and I refuse to support their company until they fill this massive (and obvious) void in their lineup.
I'm in the same boat as you -- probably will look for a discontinued '09 in a few weeks. I see no value in the '10 lineup for the prosumer, but a discounted '09 should.
That said, I don't think Apple "hates" the power-user crowd. It's just not a big enough market to spend resources on. I would love it if they made a Mac Pro mini of sorts, but that is what 1% or less of the market. We are an odd breed and just have to either suck it up and pay more for less or be content w/ an iMac. I briefly considered the latter, but the reality of a bevy of external drives made chills run down my spin.
It's got to be a far, far bigger market than the Xeon processors.
Although I think Apple has to have a $5K+ computer to maintain their "luxury" brand status.
They just need to make a Mac Maxi. Smallest possible Aluminum box that can still hold two drive slots and two card slots. Or heck, even one card slot would make most people happy. Most people just want to plug in a graphics card and I'm guessing most people don't do SLI/Crossfire. If people want to plug in eSata, etc. that does seem like more a Mac Pro market.
These arguments are getting ridiculous. If the iMac was ever a consideration for you, you do not need a Mac Pro. If you just need the expandability, that is what the 4 and 6 core versions are for.
The Mac Pro does not now cost $5k. The 12-core version costs $5k... A week ago, the 2.66 8-core was $4700.
If Apple is only going to use one chipset for the Mac Pro, I would sure prefer Xeons...
The Mac Pro does not now cost $5k. The 12-core version costs $5k... A week ago, the 2.66 8-core was $4700.
If Apple is only going to use one chipset for the Mac Pro, I would sure prefer Xeons...
It's a far smaller market than you'd think. This site has a disproportionate share of that market. Apple knows very well how big the market is and it is obviously not worth their time. Such a machine would likely eat into their entry level Mac Pro market a little and more seriously, would take people away from buying iMacs. Apple would rather power users buy all in ones and replace them every three years rather than buying a Mac 'Midi' and having the user upgrade it with third party hardware year after year.
Looking at what people say on this site, it's very easy to get a distorted view of the Mac buyer market. People on here have been saying for years that Apple will be releasing a mid ranged mac because there's a massive market for it. They've also been saying for years that the mac mini is dead because no one's buying it and they've also been saying that Apple is trying to kill of the Mac Pro. In reality, the mac mini has been one of Apple's most succesful product lines. It has dominated the bestseller lists on the likes of Amazon for many years now - even when it hadn't been updated for months and months. It's just that most buyers of Mac Minis have no intention of posting on web forums like this. The biggest market for Mac Pro users also have no intention of posting on web forums like this - the target market is either the busy professional who makes serious money with their computer or it's a big design studio / corporate office who bulk buys in a chunk of units in one go.
Apple certainly doesn't need to launch a mid sized Mac and, to be honest, it would make very bad business sense if they did. They can afford to lose the *very* small minority of users who either want such a machine or nothing at all. Most people clamouring after such a machine will just go and buy an iMac like Apple wants or go and buy a Mac Pro and grumble about the cost (while Apple laugh all the way to the bank). Of the small minority that are left, a good chunk of them will be prosumers with the time on their hands to tinker with machines and are likely to go off and build hackintoshes with a lot of those still buying licensed copies of OSX and buying things like Apple keyboards, mice and even laptops. I'm sure that Apple knows what it's doing.
Looking at what people say on this site, it's very easy to get a distorted view of the Mac buyer market. People on here have been saying for years that Apple will be releasing a mid ranged mac because there's a massive market for it. They've also been saying for years that the mac mini is dead because no one's buying it and they've also been saying that Apple is trying to kill of the Mac Pro. In reality, the mac mini has been one of Apple's most succesful product lines. It has dominated the bestseller lists on the likes of Amazon for many years now - even when it hadn't been updated for months and months. It's just that most buyers of Mac Minis have no intention of posting on web forums like this. The biggest market for Mac Pro users also have no intention of posting on web forums like this - the target market is either the busy professional who makes serious money with their computer or it's a big design studio / corporate office who bulk buys in a chunk of units in one go.
Apple certainly doesn't need to launch a mid sized Mac and, to be honest, it would make very bad business sense if they did. They can afford to lose the *very* small minority of users who either want such a machine or nothing at all. Most people clamouring after such a machine will just go and buy an iMac like Apple wants or go and buy a Mac Pro and grumble about the cost (while Apple laugh all the way to the bank). Of the small minority that are left, a good chunk of them will be prosumers with the time on their hands to tinker with machines and are likely to go off and build hackintoshes with a lot of those still buying licensed copies of OSX and buying things like Apple keyboards, mice and even laptops. I'm sure that Apple knows what it's doing.
Designing that box takes resources -- engineers, testers, etc. It's too tiny of a market compared to the rest of Apple's business to be viable. Most customers neatly fit into the consumer or pro box. Those of us caught in the middle are freaks or maybe as Jobs would put it "hobbyists."
I wish Apple would make a prosumer headless box but realistically there just isn't any real money there to justify it. It's clear by Apple's cutting the Cinema Display line down to a single 27" monitor the middle market is dead to Apple. Personally, I'm happy w/ the low end MP, it's the price I have issue with. It's expensive even by Apple's standard. It's practically a bare bones machine and should be $1999, but that conflicts w/ the high end iMacs.
As for the $5K price tag of the top line, those are clearly pro machines. $5K is nothing to a pro would can harness the power of those machines. It's not the BMW of the Mac line, it's the Mack truck, and it's not about luxury it's about faster work flow.
-True
-I'm not sure why anyone would connect 3-4 computers to 1 display anyways, and a Blu-ray drive is far from "mandatory" imo. I've got one on my PC but would never watch a movie on it.
-When the computer is obsolete the iMac screen can be used as a display for another computer, for recent models... no?