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Waiting for the 2018 MBP
- Thread starter benface
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Agree with Q-6. With all the resources in the world - mountains of cash, tons of developers, amazing hardware manufacturing capabilities, it would be nice to see some ambitious "current-tech" products come out - rather than just seeing hints of future patents re glasses, self-driving tech, etc. I know there's a massive future in AR and autonomous tech, and that's great - and I look forward to that... but it would be nice to see things NOW that are both ambitious and exciting.
A new mac mini with built-in homekit support and mediaserver focus for use with / in place of apple tv + a standard version for small-form Mac such as the Intel Nuc would be childsplay to make and would be well received, one would think.
A vertical docking station that you can slide your iPad Pro into that would enable connections to an external monitor, keyboard, mouse to turn it into a productivity machine (YES - mouse support is a MUST - these machines are the future of computing, right?? and mouse is the most efficient method of selecting things at this time)
A Macbook Pro + - 32 GB ram, 15 hour battery, touch / convertible display if desired / yada yada - This would be a niche product, with low margins - but what happened to halo products?
A mac pro (seriously.... how long does it take to make a new desktop. doesn't have to be rocket science here - pro grade off-the-shelf components in a decently attractive box... done)
All of these things are missing *today* and I don't understand why for the life of me. Keep focusing on tomorrow long enough, and all of today's pro / prosumer users are going to move off to something new and shiny (or worse - something that "just works") elsewhere.
They're running out of time to be anything other than a consumer products company fairly soon, in my opinion, and I love the mac ecosystem. I'm just saddened by its current state, and looking more and more over the fence.
A new mac mini with built-in homekit support and mediaserver focus for use with / in place of apple tv + a standard version for small-form Mac such as the Intel Nuc would be childsplay to make and would be well received, one would think.
A vertical docking station that you can slide your iPad Pro into that would enable connections to an external monitor, keyboard, mouse to turn it into a productivity machine (YES - mouse support is a MUST - these machines are the future of computing, right?? and mouse is the most efficient method of selecting things at this time)
A Macbook Pro + - 32 GB ram, 15 hour battery, touch / convertible display if desired / yada yada - This would be a niche product, with low margins - but what happened to halo products?
A mac pro (seriously.... how long does it take to make a new desktop. doesn't have to be rocket science here - pro grade off-the-shelf components in a decently attractive box... done)
All of these things are missing *today* and I don't understand why for the life of me. Keep focusing on tomorrow long enough, and all of today's pro / prosumer users are going to move off to something new and shiny (or worse - something that "just works") elsewhere.
They're running out of time to be anything other than a consumer products company fairly soon, in my opinion, and I love the mac ecosystem. I'm just saddened by its current state, and looking more and more over the fence.
Great post - the MacPro situation is going to tell us so much I think..
They really screwed that up when that type of user really just wanted and needed an updated expandable tower type of computer. Looks are not that critical on that and simply a "better looking and built Apple branded tower" is what's needed.
That product needs to be out this Summer at WWDC if you ask me, otherwise I'm worried that Apple is totally lost and can't even get the Ive crew out of the way for a product where they are barely needed.
I'm really concerned that they are spending way too much time coming up with yet another over designed Trashcan situation and trying to come at it from an overly complex angle - again..
Ya really no one cares what the Mac Pro looks like. Just upgradeable. They should have just kept the cheese grater and upgraded components and done their “great design” on the iMac pro.
Just like the iMac PRO, they may announce something at WWDC but the new MacPro may not be available until few months later.
Agreed on all points.
God... if it weren't for Apple's trackpads and some of the niceties of macOS... I'd have switched.
Right now I sit here with my 2011 MBP... next to me a €4000 Dell Precision 7520 with 64GB RAM. A beast of a machine. True workstation. Had to take it home from work as I have to work on it for an appointment on Tuesday (yeah happy WORK Easter holidays... sucks).
But just using it for like 5mins I want to kill myself.
- Task View is so so inferior to Mission Control (which is my primary way of switching Apps).
- File Explorer without Tabs
- No mounting of internal/external drives AND showing them on the desktop
- No expanding folders in File Explorer (this is KILLER) to show the CONTENTS of 2 or more folders at the same time. With Windows I have to "double click to open a folder, 'wrong', go back, double click next folder…"
- Double and Triple Click to highlight text is BROKEN in Windows. I have to use XPath expressions like a lot... like concat(substring(Class, 7,10)," - ",Name). With macOS I can double click a word like "substring" to change it. In Windows it selects EVERYTHING because Windows thinks everything is ONE word, when macOS correctly identifies word boundaries.
- If I then want to navigate these expressions, I can go one character left and right with the cursor keys. Up arrow goes to the START of the line (macOS), on Windows... it goes one to the left instead, forcing you to use a mouse or the crappy trackpad.
- Caps Lock doesn't write numbers, but only special characters
- Windows Scaling that f*s up half of the applications
- Applications that in some cases you cannot easily find (open with dialog doesn't show them so you have to navigate the File Explorer to find the actual .exe file, which is often buried deep within folders)
- Applications that QUIT when you close the last window, forcing you to either leave a document open... or having to reload applications all the time
I mean... I have thought about just buying a e.g. Dell XPS 15 or similiar quite often lately... until stuff like the above forces me to reconsider.
At least the iMac Pro, Mac Pro and Pro Display announcement, as well as the "no new features, but make things stable again" keep me somewhat hopeful that Apple can STILL turn it around. My faith is dwindling though... but then what?
And no... Linux is no alternative either... missing too many core apps.
Maybe go notebook-less... and just build a Hackintosh... mhh...
Anyhow.
/rant
You'd be surprised.
For example, a good friend of mine bought one partially because of looks, and he didn't care about upgradability. I thought he was nuts, but there ya go.
That's likely a minority..
The pro shops that I'm talking about mostly haven't even switched off of cheese graters or have gone to Windows machines at this point.
For true mega workstation situations that the MP should be catering to these things are stuck under a desk or even in a separate room to crank away and the thing that matters is raw power and upgrade/expandability.
Without a huge diatribe it seems to me Apple has very much lost focus on usability and practicality, nor much if any regard for the customer these days.
Apple once prided itself with the innovation it once achieved, today Apple produces just more & more of the same limited streamlined "appliances" which excel from a manufacturing point of view, little else...
New Mac Pro will be equally locked down and will only work for those with right cash flow. Those expecting a user expandable system will very likely be disappointed as the modularity Apple will apply will ensure zero post purchase upgrades without Apple being involved, more succinctly Apple's revenue stream will be mandatory.
Right now we are just stuck with the current management, promising the earth, yet delivering evermore watered down solutions. Sorry current MacBook Pro's are joke, requiring dongles and adaptors just to regain basic connectivity, in tandem with a keyboard that clearly was not adequately qualified.
2018 I only expect the trend to deepen, focusing more and more on consumer based lifestyle products as the professional audience dwindles to the very few that are unable to escape...
Q-6
New Coffee Lake H leak:
https://hothardware.com/news/coffee...over-acer-predator-helios-500-gaming-notebook
https://hothardware.com/news/coffee...over-acer-predator-helios-500-gaming-notebook
I think Steve was more committed to the Pro market than Tim is. Tim is doing the more profitable thing in making better consumer electronics and just betting that people who want to stay in the ecosystem will just be forced to use their new pro machines.
Macs were originally intended for creative types but right now they've just been pushed to the side. Weird since they need Pro users to develop apps and content to sell the millions idevice users
Very much agree, equally frustrating as once the balance tips the Mac becomes non viable in the face of the competition...
Q-6
Ironically enough, the old cheese grater Mac Pro is one of the best looking designs ever produced, and proof that you don't have to sacrifice functionality for the sake of aesthetics, as long as you have the right priorities in mind.
Its so sad. Since I switched to using a Mac, each system I bought in 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2014 were all fantastic investments for my work in motion graphics, video and animation.
I'm now passing the 4 year mark on this machine, which is the longest I've ever gone between upgrades, but there's next to no value proposition in upgrading to anything they're currently offering for my needs. Performance has been stagnant, and the design changes at best superfluous and at worst worrying (keyboard issues, touchbar solution in search of a problem).
I keep hoping that there'll be something worthwhile coming down the line this year, but I'm sorta preparing myself for their focus to continue to shift towards the animoji market rather than beautifully designed tools.
Tim's strategy is volume. Remember years ago during Jobs era, even after the iPhone was released, it wasn't about selling the most, but selling the best.
These days, you hear Tim pushing out big numbers 1.3 billion active users. Apple never use to do that in the past. Steve once said, if we sell 10 million iPhone per year, its 1% of the market and thats good.
Noticed when the iPad stop selling 22 million every quarter, they stop pushing how popular it is?
So, its a numbers game at Apple now, they have gotten caught up in, if its not a product that can sell 80 million every quarter, its not worth the time.
I think a lot of people are dreading the forthcoming Mac Pro precisely because it will say so much about Apple and its direction. If it is another trash can, Apple is a zombie. The richest zombie ever, but a zombie that has lost its life, soul, and direction.
It's not hard - just update the 5,1 cheesegrater design. Shrink the case, give the option for one or two CPUs, allow the user to upgrade GPUs, RAM, and storage, include 4 PCI slots, enough power to run two powerful GPUs, and . . . voila.
And if Apple has to offer two different boxes, one for a single CPU socket and one for dual, fine.
As I wrote in a Mac Pro thread, for ****s sake just make it a tower. Enough of the over-designed **** that's been Apple's staple of the last five years.
It's not hard - just update the 5,1 cheesegrater design. Shrink the case, give the option for one or two CPUs, allow the user to upgrade GPUs, RAM, and storage, include 4 PCI slots, enough power to run two powerful GPUs, and . . . voila.
And if Apple has to offer two different boxes, one for a single CPU socket and one for dual, fine.
As I wrote in a Mac Pro thread, for ****s sake just make it a tower. Enough of the over-designed **** that's been Apple's staple of the last five years.
Its so sad. Since I switched to using a Mac, each system I bought in 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2014 were all fantastic investments for my work in motion graphics, video and animation.
I'm now passing the 4 year mark on this machine, which is the longest I've ever gone between upgrades, but there's next to no value proposition in upgrading to anything they're currently offering for my needs. Performance has been stagnant, and the design changes at best superfluous and at worst worrying (keyboard issues, touchbar solution in search of a problem).
I keep hoping that there'll be something worthwhile coming down the line this year, but I'm sorta preparing myself for their focus to continue to shift towards the animoji market rather than beautifully designed tools.
i don't understand why they can't have both. they have enough money they could definitely try. it suggests a focus on profits rather than someone with a unique vision. this happens all the time in the film industry with a director who has a specific vision vs producers who want things shoved in because it'll increase box office returns
yeah i agree. but apple should be above that. they were founded and started by people who were above that.
yeah dude IDK. the mac pro should be the easiest thing to release because of the way its used. pros who want off the shelf upgradeable parts. i do appreciate them trying to push and reimagine what a workstation can be. i think the trashcan was too ahead of its time honestly. pci express 16 slots are still way faster than thunderbolt. perhaps in the near future. but people in the industries who actually use mac pros never even update to the latest versions of software and for good reason. i'm interested to see what the new mac pro looks like mainly because i've always wanted one and i'm at the point in my life where getting one is a strong possibility. as someone who used to build computers in my spare time though...i would definitely appreciate a return to the cheesegrater (or something like it)
Its so sad. Since I switched to using a Mac, each system I bought in 2005, 2008, 2011 and 2014 were all fantastic investments for my work in motion graphics, video and animation.
I'm now passing the 4 year mark on this machine, which is the longest I've ever gone between upgrades, but there's next to no value proposition in upgrading to anything they're currently offering for my needs. Performance has been stagnant, and the design changes at best superfluous and at worst worrying (keyboard issues, touchbar solution in search of a problem).
I keep hoping that there'll be something worthwhile coming down the line this year, but I'm sorta preparing myself for their focus to continue to shift towards the animoji market rather than beautifully designed tools.
Professionally I've given up on Apple, I need hardware that performs, is scalable, solid and secure. Apple's focus is impressing you visually little else. Usability and practicality sacrificed for the sake of impressing the base consumer with a thinner ever more diluted product.
In my own realm of engineering the Mac was never a big player, although popular with consultants. Most I know today are either looking at dropping the Mac or have already switched. Best described as an exodus between the poor design of the current MBP and the rising instability of the OS. In many respects it's very much a vicious circle; fewer that employ the Mac professionally the fewer software devs will support the platform with professional grade applications.
Right now Apple only wants "Pro" to be a stimulus to make average users feel better about their purchasing decisions, not actually listening and supporting it's dwindling professional audience. Disappointing and saddening as the Mac once had so much more to offer...
Q-6
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Don't know why but i think i see a quad on 13 " and exa on 15" only when Intel will stop selling dual cores ,leaving it just for the Core M.
Apple puts the latest CPUs in the MBP when they refresh. I don’t know that the 13” touch bar goes all quad, Apple might offer dual and quad. (Non-Touch Bar would seem to stay at dual core due to lack of 15W quad core with GT3e graphics availability.)
Similarly, will the 15” go all hexacore or will Apple offer quad and hex?
I am pretty sure (hope to be wrong) that the Mac Pro will be modular and not a tower. For a simple reason – this way you will only be able to buy 'extensions' from Apple.
As for rMBP, I've really given hope on it becoming properly useful again. The "Escape Edition is a replacement for Macbook Air" line is what I believe to be the way Apple want to go with it.
As for rMBP, I've really given hope on it becoming properly useful again. The "Escape Edition is a replacement for Macbook Air" line is what I believe to be the way Apple want to go with it.
If Apple puts the latest CPU in MacBook Pro 2015, it would be the best seller. It can easily sell millions.
Add in the P3 display, 2 X USB C, better dGPU (RX 580) keep the full capacity battery, leave the rest of the port solution alone, all with a reliable keyboard.
Unfortunately we're very much stuck with a pointlessly thin, performance limited pretentious notebook with questionable reliability...
Q-6
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