I think we agree in fact completely. Just update the Mac Pro silently and add the features (BTO if needed) that pros find useful. Use the advantage of being supplied by Intel and provide the best workstations; Mac Pros.
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I think we agree in fact completely. Just update the Mac Pro silently and add the features (BTO if needed) that pros find useful. Use the advantage of being supplied by Intel and provide the best workstations; Mac Pros.
A properly designed motherboard doesn't need to updated until there's a processor updated really as that is also usually when the support chipset is also updated. as for the GPU, since this is on a plug in card, Apple could update the BTO stuff for the Mac Pro to include the new cards every few months. This would of course mostly appease the people who use Pros for work and also game on them.
And of course not all MHz's are created equal. I agree with you about the reasons for getting a Mac Pro. However, for some applications, some people can go to an iMac and get a nice boost. Yes, there are still reasons for getting a Pro.
Then why would you need Nvidia anyway? Since when Open CL is concerned ATI will offer the same support as Nvidia does.
Why do you release something? To be viewed presumably... But, as i have said, the viewing point is not the issue. It is about sharing the movie amongst people in the movie industry amobgst themselves. Now, you are right to say Authoring is required by people who work in that industry. My question all along has been why? Is that industry simply using old tech when there are better alernatives? And remember, if you choose to answer, this isn't about the viewing. Those industry workers, who are buying Mac Pro equivalents on Windows can afford the cheap devices that lets you stream computer files to a TV or big screen fo viewing. So the question is why are they so intent on sharing the files via BR Disks?
You can't really change the motherboard and gain anything unless the CPU takes advantage of the new board. The RAM speed is also bound to the motherboard so changing that doesn't make sense anyway. So RAM, board and CPU basically come together, and Intel offers them that way anyway.
The only thing you could change during those 511 days were the hard drives, and adding SATA III.
Worth every cent if you actually use the extra power. You seem to have a habit of misreading and not spending time to understand what's written. I don't usually re type stuff, but for you, I have to. iMacs already did replace Mac Pro's on many professional design studios. Not every professional uses Mac Pro anymore. But 15 years ago, if you were doing professional work, you just couldn't get it done on the slow macs, people bought the most expensive ones, always. But today, not every professional needs to do it. Some still do, and they do buy Mac Pro's, I'm one of them. I still do need Mac Pro, but I know many others who don't, not anymore.
Would it kill Apple to include flash? Of course not. But that is not the point. Their point is they want industries, like newspapers etc., to move forward and adopt future technology to make things better. Including flash or BR forestalls progress and Apple will have none if it. What people in their respectives industries need to do is to start taking alternative measures when they are available.
Concerning making 1080p available on itunes as an option, incidently, I agree with you, but that is a long way from addrssing what is needed in a Mac Pro refresh.
As for the people asking for a BluRay drive in the system.
Note: I do realize burnt optical disks have a lifespan question. But so do regular hard drives. And most professionals would make at least 2 copies of the permanent archive for a project.
- This would make sense, it's meant for people doing video editing after all.
- It would be nice ot be able to burn backups and archives of large projects on BluRay recordable discs. One BluRay recordable or 10 DVD-R's? Which would you rather deal with.
- The backup/archiving even applies to photgraphers as the profession digital cameras make higher and higher resolution images, the more space you need to deal with the images.
- Why should the Mac be the only brand of computer without a BluRay drive option?
Note: I do realize burnt optical disks have a lifespan question. But so do regular hard drives. And most professionals would make at least 2 copies of the permanent archive for a project.
There are no better alternatives. BR is still the single highest definition media release format there is.
I already told you that you can't distribute films on USB sticks, due to price. And no, renting the USB stick and then sending is back in never a good solution. So that means basically to buy a movie, you have to go to the post office to send the thing back? Who would spend time on such a thing?
You can do BR backups right now, just buy a 50$ Blu Ray rom on your Mac Pro. Toast supports burning BR. So you always have that option. You just don't have it directly from Apple. But that's what the Mac Pro is for, so you can expand it yourself with 3rd party stuff.
I do believe that the consoles of today (predating the iOS) can browse the web and check email, they can even play BDs! Perhaps you never entered into the discussion a decade or decade and a half ago, but then consoles *were* going to replace PCs - it was a done deal - according to many many enthusiasts.
It never happened (obviously) but consoles were among other things, simpler to use and cheaper than computers.
For years people have been able to receive email and to an extent browse the internet on their cell phones and that didn't create a "post-PC" era. It wasn't even when Bill Gates (according to you) coined the phrase. No, it was when Steve Jobs claimed it and many many people believed him.
I could have mentioned that in 2006 I saw far more people spending time on their cell phones than ever on their computers, yet I wasn't convinced that we were in a "post-PC" era than any more than now.
Also while you are of course correct that iOS devices are easier to use than PCs, we both know they are way more limited. That limitation is in no small part what makes them simple to use.
So while they are limited and easy to use they are appealing as such, but when they get more features and more power, one has to consider a normal PC as a better choice. Thus the tablets (at least according to Apple) have to be simple and easy to use - and limited.
But when you have a more capable tablet, one that rivals the Mac OS in features, then why a tablet .. and is there then any particular difference between a tablet and a PC? Look at what MS is offering in Windows 8, where they are going to blur the line completely between a tablet and a PC, by offering the very same OS on both.
Sure tablets are and will be convenient devices, but essentially they're just very portable PCs with a touch-screen. That's all the magic.
Kill them? No. However, including flash means that flash bugs also get marked against the OS X distribution since it shipped with flash.
It so easy to download flash anyway, it shouldn't even be an issue that Apple doesn't include it with the OS X distribution.
??? What MBA models are *you* talking about?
The MBA runs a full OS (SL) with root access, ability to run other OSes (via bootcamp), full keyboard, monitor, trackpad, USB ports that have full host capability, etc. That's a full computer if I ever saw one (and I'm grateful that it still is!), and definitely a notebook.
Conceptualy pretty similar to my 15 year old Compaq Contura Aero, which only had an internal HDD, no floppy or CDROM and was meant as a low power ultraportable.
A 30" CinemaDisplay is more than enough to enjoy every single pixel of a BD - and to be quite frank, I've yet to see anything bigger than a 42" TV in a home here and it's just as fine as my iMac (because I sit closer to the iMac)
In fact it seems to be some sort of a misunderstanding that BD must be on a huge monitor to be enjoyed. It's still just a movie and the monitor is quite capable of showing every pixel - even if it wasn't it would still show more pixels than a DVD.
Furthermore, there's nothing interesting about 720p or even 1080p streaming movies, especially on a computer with this good monitor - let alone on a 50" TV, since the bitrate is pathetic on those video-streams compared to BD.
Resolution is merely half the story. A high bitrate 720p is far better than a low bitrate 1080p video and quite frankly, considering how anemic and slow the upgrade of the internet infrastructure is - the "BD nightmare" (which is quite sweet dream actually!) is going nowhere.
BR is not the highest media format. There is a 50gb limit. As for your price claim, I already refuted it. I never claimed we ought to use USB sticks to rent movies. The renting point is irrelevant to the discussion. We are talking only about movie execs sharing movie files amongst themselves.
Seriously guys, stop it with the "Apple doesn't care about Macs anymore" They do care, the sales are still rising and they are one of the best computers you can buy today (not spec wise)
Also, Brian Tong is just another guy that Reads Macrumors and has been predicting the obvious you can get from 30 minutes in the forums
Also, Brian Tong is just another guy that Reads Macrumors and has been predicting the obvious you can get from 30 minutes in the forums
I have never heard that rumor that consoles were going to replace PC's. Even if there was such a rumor/saying it wasn't so obvious and everywhere as it is today with these new devices.
I don't know if Gates coined it. I just first heard it from him. And it's not about believing. It's happening already.
It's not about spending more time on them. It's about whether they can do everything they do on a PC on them. In 2006 a cellphone did not offer all those things, today it kind of does. But cellphones do have small screens, so alone they can never replace PC's, for size reasons. But tablets don't have that limitation. A tablet has enough screen estate for mail/web and even games.
No, the limitation is not what makes them easier to use. The design philosophy is. They are only limited for professional use. There's absolutely no limitation when it comes to web browsing (ok, Flash is a big issue here but that only concerns Apple tablets), actually web browsing on a tablet is "better" than browsing on a PC. Because touch browsing is more intuitive than cursor browsing. And web browsing is a big portion of what people do on their PC's, and it's better done on a tablet.
Tablets won't be limited when the time comes. The only reason they are limited right now is because the entire UI is for every app ever written is being redesigned for touch atm, and it's not gonna happen overnight that every feature will be carried over. Also the hardware doesn't support a full fledge application atm, but it will very soon.
When tablets and PC's eventually merge, the device will be the tablet, although the software will have completely carried over. A tablet will never use the same OS as a PC does today, simply because a tablet is touch based. So a cursor based OS can't be used on it. Also tablets don't have filesystem available to the user. That's a big design difference from desktop OS's. And they probably never will. So when they merge with PC's, we'll be using OS's without file system access.
It's the highest definition distribution format. Obviously it's not the highest def mastering format, but that's irrelevant.
Movie execs sharing movie files amongst themselves? Honestly, what are you talking about? What about the viewer? How do we get movies when there's no optical media.
Again, you don't understand what "post-PC" means. It's not what you think it does.
But taking your point, then we've been living in this "era" for more than a decade now. Yeah I think Apple is making a huge mistake then. Even bigger than I conceived before, because clearly PCs are going nowhere and slacking with Mac development, e.g. dropping the XServe and waiting some 17+ months to upgrade the Mac Pro, skimming on the BD support and whatnot is amzingly, amazingly stupid - especially since it seems to stem from *their* apparent realization that they've been living in a "post-PC" era for so long now and "stupidly" been developing PCs
The fact is, for some reason Apple is not supporting Mac development as they did before, as is evident by the anemic OS development (ooo gestures!) and somewhat stilted hardware development. Whatever the reason is (their illusions of a post-PC era or whatever) doesn't really concern me - all I know is as a Mac user, I feel it and I see it.
In fact Apple usually takes time out to deny it at trade shows and when they are blatantly introducing something new that has nothing to do with the Mac.
Anyways, live in whatever era you want, that's not the point. The point is: There are no "all-new next-gen" Mac Pros coming any time soon. Despite what some guy on the internet said.
Perhaps apple are happy with 10% market share but disproportionately large profit share? Maybe its not possible to have 15-20% market share without having to compromise on margins, and they don't want to do that?
It's quite irrelevant that a display can display all the pixels in a blu ray. Next year when they release iPad 3 with retina display, it'll also be capable of displaying every pixel in a blu ray, but would you prefer to watch a blu ray on a 10" screen or a 50" screen? Size does matter. That's why people still go to movie theaters.
Bitrate of course matters, but a 10kbit bitrate on 1080p will be enough for most people if the bandwidth allows them to download it.
The BD nightmare will go away, because like I said, the next thing after Blu Ray won't make sense on computer monitors anyway.
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Wait. What?! I just bought my MBP like 4 hrs ago! Is this true or just another rumor? Should I return it?
Or is it just a minon upgrade the specs?
Wait. What?! I just bought my MBP like 4 hrs ago! Is this true or just another rumor? Should I return it?
Or is it just a minon upgrade the specs?
First you claimed that viewing was not the issue, a few posts ago, now you want to make it an issue again. Which is it?
If renting and viewing films is the issue, then it has nothing to do with Mac Pros needing BR Authoring, which was the initial topic btw. But, assuming that is the issue, the itunes movie stores, and services like netflix or Amazon are making it readily apparent that the majority of comsumers couldn't care less about maximum picture quality. And to the extent that they do, they can easily stream the movies by pre-downloading the content. Again, Apple has got it right.
The same shift as we saw with music is happening with movies. Lossless quality music in the format of CDs is dead. I hate to break it to you. The same is happening to movies and Apple recognizes it.
They make do with iMacs (you mean) and mostly it's because they now have decent monitors - doing design work on the 15" iMac of 1998 was out of the question, but it actually could run Illustrator well enough, even Quark.
Back before the 24" iMac there was no other machine than the Power Macintosh that offered support for a large display (excepting the Cube, but well that disappeared fast) and Apple even neutered the GPUs of the lower Macs so they only supported mirroring instead of dual display - precisely for that reason.
So yeah, many can make due with an iMac at 27", but every single one of them would notice a considerable difference were they to use a Mac Pro instead. It's just cheaper to buy an iMac.
There was never a time that the lower end of the Mac spectrum was unusable for design work (such as the iMac and the eMac) but they were simply not possible to use with their tiny 15" and 17" non-Trinitron CRTs.