New Mac Pros and Mac Minis Launching in August

[Atlantico]

Are we trolling now? PC's were the most important thing for software developers. Now they aren't.

Not really, just pointing out how blatantly hyperbolic and meaningless your post was. Of course if we look at only PCs in relation to the iOS devices and their counterparts, we're far from the Post-PC era.

In no way, shape or form, are the iOS devices more important than the PCs of today. Are you trolling? One has to wonder. In fact my point was also half-serious, because like the TV, iOS devices are an appliance. More versatile than a TV, for sure, but an appliance non-the-less.

Apple is pushing some video too through the iOS devices, so the question of the importance of TVs regarding the future of iOS based devices is quite relevant. But your assessment of the current situation is quite out there.

No, we are not in the Post PC era, nor was 2005 the year of HD. All we have is Steve Jobs' word for it. Wishful thinking/marketing speak, I'm afraid.

 

[Sixtafoua]

I hope they change the case design of the Mac Pro. My 2003 PowerMac G5 has the same case.

 

[sfwalter]

Whatever they put in the mac mini will most definitely be under powered.

 

[mattku07]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/534.32 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8F190 Safari/6533.18.5)

At Best Buy right now with a MBP I bought last week. They are trying to decide if they should give me the best buy gift card or iTunes gift card. Pretty cool that they are honoring the promotion for me.

 

[jamisonbaines]

what exactly do you complainers expect? there is no purpose in updating without actual updates. a mac pro with a new case every other year isn't innovation and updates don't flow faster than the technology inside the machine. they can't release processors that don't exist.

ios gets more attention because it's a younger technology with more room for development.

 

[435713]

I love how the word "professional" gets thrown around here. I really do.

 

[Blue Velvet]

Then some of you can buy a Mac Pro. I was talking about the needs of the industry in general. Not specific people with specific needs. Computers are not designed for individuals, they are designed for groups of individuals, big ones.

Which is why Mac Pros are useful and offer tremendous value for money if you're not going to go the hackintosh route, because some of us like to customise their setups instead of using a sealed unit. Personally, I've never worked in a studio where they've used anything but Power Macs or Mac Pros with dual matte displays. Perhaps I'm lucky.

Anyway, I'll keep an occasional eye on this rumour/news. New cases would be nice, too. Hulking aluminium cheese-graters are getting a little old.

 

[iBug2]

In no way, shape or form, are the iOS devices more important than the PCs of today. Are you trolling? One has to wonder.

More important to you, maybe not. But more important for software developers. Or at least as important. Again, context. I specifically said "for software developers".

If we were talking about their usage by general public, post PC devices are much more important than PC's. People can spend some time without their PC's, but not without their phones, and this has been so for a long time now.

 

[mrwheet]

I don't see anything strange about the possibility of new Mac Pros, but I would if they were anything but a minor maintenance upgrade. I would like to underscore with all seriousness, that the disinterest Apple is showing the Mac doesn't mean the Mac is dead or dying anytime soon.. but in 5 years, continuing this same trend, then we'll be looking at a non-pro Mac line and in another 5 years, all laptop-line of Macs, running iOS (which will certainly be far more capable then, than it is now)

Point being, it's a slow downward spiral, and as such there is full reason for Apple to rewrite FCP. The rewrite was started more than two years ago anyway, and back then the future of the Mac was far brighter than it is today.

The Mac may be a nuisance and perhaps a distraction from Steve Jobs' vision, but Apple will muddle through with this distraction for a few more years before starting the wind-down in earnest (i.e. stop the maintenance upgrades and cutting down development of desktop machines entirely)

Hopefully this won't happen - I'm a big big fan of the Mac and hope it lives at least as long in it's OS X incarnation as it lived in the System 1-9 incarnation.

Okay, about the iOS paranoia. It's not a "downward spiral." There would be no iOS without Mac OS X. Thus, iOS will always be a subset of OS X, even if they wind up rebranding them under a single name. But even in that case, iOS will then be "upgraded" to OS X, not the other way around. I never thought I'd be one of those laptop guys, who actually spends more time on the laptop than on the desktop, but I sort of became one. My Macbook Pro was outperforming my 2008 Mac Pro for a lot of jobs, so it's just kind of happened. If and when some future iPad outperforms my Macbook Pro, then maybe I'll slip into using that, but the WORK is fundamentally the same.

Think of it this way, 10 years ago no Mac tower could access as much RAM, HD, etc. as the current entry-level iMac. So, doing the same job, a current iMac would kick an older G4 tower's ass in every department. Which is to say that the definition of a "pro" machine has only EVER been a question of how much WORK you could do on it. If I can do all that work on a future iPad, then so be it. I can't see how it's possible, but that may just be a lack of imagination on my part. Obviously, things like having a proper keyboard and reasonable screen real estate are important for my work, but you get the idea.

I also want to point out that people talking about FCP X being "prosumer" are absolutely full of crap. It's a joke. There is no "prosumer" (whatever that means) user who would ever make use of all the features FCP X has implemented. People are just getting pissy because it looks kinda like iMovie. It's a joke. People around here are so sentimental. In all honesty, there's nothing more ugly and ridiculous than the average PC. They SHOULD go the way of the dinosaur. People bitching about leaving PCs behind are like people bitching about history phasing out those all-in-one, furniture cabinet "high-fi" systems from the '70s. Those things were truly, deeply fugly. And other than losing some massive piece of entirely useless furniture, home audio never looked back.

 

[iBug2]

Which is why Mac Pros are useful and offer tremendous value for money if you're not going to go the hackintosh route, because some of us like to customise their setups instead of using a sealed unit. Personally, I've never worked in a studio where they've used anything but Power Macs or Mac Pros with dual matte displays. Perhaps I'm lucky.

Anyway, I'll keep an occasional eye on this rumour/news. New cases would be nice, too. Hulking aluminium cheese-graters are getting a little old.

Mac Pro's offer tremendous value for money for some people, not for every professional. That was the whole point I am making. They used to offer that value for a much bigger group, years ago, but not anymore.

 

[RalfTheDog]

Whatever they put in the mac mini will most definitely be under powered.

If it is under powerd, you are using it for the wrong thing. The Mac Mini, iMac and the Mac pro all serve different purposes. You can't run a large data center on an iPad. That does not make the iPad under powered.

 

[iBug2]

No, we are not in the Post PC era, nor was 2005 the year of HD. All we have is Steve Jobs' word for it. Wishful thinking/marketing speak, I'm afraid.

Post PC era is not a term Jobs coined btw. It's just a SV term.

 

[Matthew Yohe]

Intel didn't help to develop TB. They solely developed it! Google something called Light Peak.

Well kindof...

"Developed by Intel (under the code name Light Peak), and brought to market with technical collaboration from Apple."

 

[RalfTheDog]

A Mac Mini or an iMac can have as many apps open at the same time as a Mac Pro, as long as you install enough RAM. Because that's the only thing that effects application performance when other apps are open. Currently iMacs can get 16GB's of RAM, which is more than plenty for the majority.

Rendering uses cores, so if your job requires rendering on a regular basis on long intervals, obviously you are going to make use of a Mac Pro. But many graphic designers don't render a single thing in their lifetime. So why should they get a Mac Pro? I can understand an architect needing a Mac Pro, because they render a lot but an Illustrator operator, an Indesign operator? No.

It's not all about cores. Sometimes it is about loads of mirrored fast storage. Sometimes it is about wall full of screens (and loosing your mouse pointer).

 

[435713]

Mac Pro's offer tremendous value for money for some people, not for every professional. That was the whole point I am making. They used to offer that value for a much bigger group, years ago, but not anymore.

They are nice machines, but I have seen the EXACT same specs (better video card as well) for $1,350. It was on sale though of course.

 

[iBug2]

It's not all about cores. Sometimes it is about loads of mirrored fast storage. Sometimes it is about wall full of screens (and loosing your mouse pointer).

Mirrored fast storage will work with iMacs through TB in couple of months, also with Mac Mini if it gets a TB port.

Wall full of screens is about display size. And both iMac and Mac Mini support display resolutions up to 2560*1600, same as Mac Pro. If you need multiple displays, ok then Mac Pro is ideal.

 

[edoates]

You don't need Blu Ray Authoring to cut your full feature movie on your mac. There's something called transfer. And Bootcamp.

True but it's a cobbled together solution. Why should I have FCS + Windows 7 + a BR authoring solution? Why not just WIndows 7 + Vegas?

It's that simple. Steve J keeps saying things should be simple and elegant. Lion + Windows + FSC + Vegas is not either. So, I'll pick one.

Eddie O

 

[iBug2]

They are nice machines, but I have seen the EXACT same specs (better video card as well) for $1,350. It was on sale though of course.

Not for dual core ones you can't. The CPU's alone cost more than 2.5k.

True but it's a cobbled together solution. Why should I have FCS + Windows 7 + a BR authoring solution? Why not just WIndows 7 + Vegas?

It's that simple. Steve J keeps saying things should be simple and elegant. Lion + Windows + FSC + Vegas is not either. So, I'll pick one.

Eddie O

If you like Vegas over FCP, then why use a mac in the first place? If you are a editor and using a Mac, it's mostly because you want FCP, or you like AMC's mac port better than the win port. In any case you are doing it for the software, which doesn't immediately change because mac doesn't offer blu ray authoring.

I realize it's not ideal, and I wish macs had true blu ray authoring as well. But I wouldn't switch to win just because of that.

 

[Ryth]

We already have MacBook Pro/Airs and Minis

And none of those have upgradable Video Card or Audio Card slots.

Many of us want the power of a top of the line iMac or mid range Mac Pro in a Small Form Factor case that can be upgradable.

But many graphic designers don't render a single thing in their lifetime. So why should they get a Mac Pro? I can understand an architect needing a Mac Pro, because they render a lot but an Illustrator operator, an Indesign operator? No

.

Exactly. Im what I consider a mid/upper level user. I do PSD/Illustrator/InDesign but also do AE/FCP/C4D but it's mid level stuff that I don't need a render farm for. It's 30 sec commercials and things like that.

I want a MacPro because I want to be able to upgrade the Video Card every few years. I cannot do that on the iMac but yet the power of the top of the line iMac would be exactly fine for me...and yet I can't upgrade the video card in an iMac and I don't need the monitor from the iMac.

 

[flottenheimer]

Is it just me, or Apple doesn't seem to care about the MacBooks anymore. Those Machines are stock with a Core Dual Processor. I like the MacBooks a lot, due to the way it looks, but like I said, seems like Apple doesn't care about them anymore!

I think the MacBook will be phased out. Why don't you just go for a 13" MacBook Pro or an Air ... I'm pretty sure you'll learn love them (they are, imho, more than worth the "upgrade"-price from the MacBook).

 

[edoates]

If you like Vegas over FCP, then why use a mac in the first place? If you are a editor and using a Mac, it's mostly because you want FCP, or you like AMC's mac port better than the win port. In any case you are doing it for the software, which doesn't immediately change because mac doesn't offer blu ray authoring.

I realize it's not ideal, and I wish macs had true blu ray authoring as well. But I wouldn't switch to win just because of that.

I don't like Vegas over FCS: but Vegas has some features I must have: high def blu ray authoring, and BR drives on Sony (and other) PCs built in and supported directly. I don't have to cobble together a solution.

If FCS + new Mac Pro offer BluRay authoring, I'll get it without question. Without it, since I need a new machine anyway (using a G5 Quad now ;-) and moving files to a friends PC for BR authoring - a pain), I'll look further afield than I would otherwise.

For Apple, it's about where to make money and I understand that (I'm a stock holder after all), and if BR costs more for them to develop than they'll get back, they should ignore it as they have done.

And I need to look for the best solution for my use. It may wind up being a cobbled together solution if I test drive Vegas for editing and don't like it. We'll see, won't we?


Eddie O

 

[iBug2]

Let's get this straight. An iMac differs from a Mac Pro on these areas:

Expandability in terms of PCI-E. (iMac doesn't have PCI-E, MBP's at least have one express card slot)

RAM amount (iMac maxed out at 16GB)

GPU speed and multiple displays (iMacs have slower GPU's if you are a gamer, but for most professionals, this is irrelevant. If your apps can make use of Open CL, then it'll matter but we haven't seen many examples of this yet. Multiple displays are an option for TB equipped iMacs, but then you can't use the TB port for other stuff)

Core amount (iMacs maxed out at 8 threads where Mac Pro's are at 24 threads)

And that's it.

It has more internal storage, but since TB and USB 3.0 have enough bandwidth, external storage runs as fast as internal storage now. Unless you are stripping 10 SSD's to get 3.5 GB/sec ofc, then you need this through PCI-E and TB won't be enough.


So unless you actually make use of one or the other, the internals of an iMac isn't any "slower" than the internals of a Mac Pro.

 

[iBug2]

I don't like Vegas over FCS: but Vegas has some features I must have: high def blu ray authoring, and BR drives on Sony (and other) PCs built in and supported directly. I don't have to cobble together a solution.

If FCS + new Mac Pro offer BluRay authoring, I'll get it without question. Without it, since I need a new machine anyway (using a G5 Quad now ;-) and moving files to a friends PC for BR authoring - a pain), I'll look further afield than I would otherwise.

For Apple, it's about where to make money and I understand that (I'm a stock holder after all), and if BR costs more for them to develop than they'll get back, they should ignore it as they have done.

And I need to look for the best solution for my use. It may wind up being a cobbled together solution if I test drive Vegas for editing and don't like it. We'll see, won't we?


Eddie O

In your case I'd really use bootcamp. I have a blu ray drive in my 4 year old Mac Pro, it works with no issues on win. And keep using your favorite editor, and author blu rays. Bootcamp seems like an extra pain in the ass, but you don't author blu rays every 10 minutes, so rebooting won't be that often.

 

[blairh]

I really love my Mac Mini. I'm so happy Apple is keeping it up to date. For a while there it looked liked it would die from the lineup.

 

[randomrazr]

anything on those dam time capsules?