#41

For what it’s worth, I think the Mac Mini was an incredible step forwards, and if I was in the market for a desktop, would snap one up in an instant! I do agree that its a really elegant, well priced ‘musicians computer’, but overall the trajectory of what Apple has been doing just seems alienating and uninspired from my perspective

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#42

I mean, I agree with you all above, but the fact that the T2 issue has been around for as long as it has been and hasn’t been definitively patched shouts pretty loud and clear that it’s hardly a priority, or even on the radar.

As far as security, I totally agree, but the cynic in me says that this isn’t an ideological stand by the company, but rather just soft-pedaling into brand awareness + ‘trust’ as they step into finance via Apple card and additional ‘Apple services’ rather than the creative + elegant software/hardware packages of before.

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#43

I agree it’s 100% about marketing and becoming the privacy brand. Also these security features allow them to lock out third party repair engineers from fixing their computers.

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#44

as far as I remember T2 interferes with USB, but the new Mac Pro exposes PCI slots for you to use however you like…

#45

I would be interested in a Mac Mini Pro. Or Mac Pro Mini? Or Mac Promi?

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#46

Oh, who knows, maybe they’d come up with something magical at a reasonable price point. I totally get it that monitors aren’t an important line of business for them, but it seems odd that they’ve got entry-level everything in their product portfolio except a monitor.

#47

Ok, but what would that actually be, and how would it be meaningfully different that what they already offer elsewhere?

The 27" iMac is a pretty nice monitor, and there’s a computer thrown in for free. Or maybe it’s a pretty nice computer with a nice monitor thrown in for free?

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#48

Performance of the iMac Pro but with your choice of monitor, basically.

I’m also considering a MacBook Pro later in the year as my main machine, using a dock/external monitor, but I do a lot of big orchestral sessions and I’m not sure if it’s powerful enough.

#49

Totally, but I don’t want to buy a $6000 computer + a yet to be announced PCI solution to achieve the same degree of functionality/reliability I had on my MBP 9 years ago (!!)

Like, to be clear, the Mac Pro isn’t in my budget, nor does it need to be, but as a signal/symbol of what the future of pro Apple ‘is about’, it just keeps looking grimmer and grimmer (as far as I can tell, though I really, desperately want to be wrong about this)

#51

As a user that has both audio needs and 3D/light VR needs, I feel pretty SOL in the Apple ecosystem, although I would very much like to stay there.

I bought an MSI laptop for about $1250 last year that takes care of things (and runs rings around a comparably priced MBP), but using it is an absolute chore. I would love to switch back to Apple, but really, there just seems to be nothing there, and the way its going, feels unlikely that anything decent is in the pipeline, either

#52

Ideas of “performance” and “powerful” get wildly fragmented at the high end. Depending on the task at hand, you may or may not benefit from this or that fancy engineering. One obvious example, is that you can easily buy a machine with a fancy graphics subsystem and benefit not one whit from it, if you don’t use any graphics that a baseline subsystem cannot handle with aplomb. (People do this.) Sneakier, for many tasks, big Xeon processors in “Pro” computers can actually get smoked by “consumer” processors running at higher clock rates, because the software in question cannot take advantage of ostensible advantages of the (relatively) exotic processor hardware. This has been a common refrain for Apple’s products: their current top spec iMac has often been the fastest computer they make for many purposes. More cores are just more overhead unless you have software truly optimized for multicore processing. Superlatives can just be misleading.

If you’re really operating at an extreme and you need a system that will reliably handle a tricky load, then you may be facing a fair bit of research and probably some trial and error (so leave plenty of time for that).

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#53

I might be wrong here, but I can’t imagine that Apple is going to make a ton of money (relatively speaking) off of this new Pro and monitor. Despite the fact that the price is crazy, I’m guessing that the production cost is also quite high, and this isn’t going to be a margin-driver for them. I’m not the target market here, but it gives me hope that Apple hasn’t given up on the pro market. Since the release (and subsequent abandonment) of the “trash can” Mac Pro, I sort of felt like that was the end for the pro market at Apple, but this gives me hope that we’ll continue to see pro-level products from them, and perhaps this is just the (big) tip of the iceberg.

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#54

Apparently the monitor is cheaper than comparable reference monitors from Sony and other companies that production companies use. Those go for 43k

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#55

totally! for me, its less that we might (personally) not want/need something like the extreme upper eschelon Mac Pro, but it seems like a bellwether of what’s to come design-wise and ideologically from the company.

I’m glad to see that they made a serious powerhouse of a machine, but just the small things like releasing the thousand dollar monitor stand (on top of the MBPs without dongles, removing magsafe, removing the powercable tabs from the chargers, faulty keyboards, faulty t2, etc) just seem to pile on faster than I can keep any enthusiasm for the company, or what feels acceptable as far as “oh, well, that’s SO Apple”-type exasperation.

I’m praying for the redesigned MBP (maybe next year?) to blow it out of the water in a similar way as the Mac Pro now, but not holding my breath lol

#56

53-PM
Screen-Shot-2019-06-03-at-4.32.53-PM.jpg1390×891 98.5 KB

A few years back this could have been a meme. Sadly, it is reality

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#57

Is this better or worse than bundling it with the monitor for $6000, and having people who plan on mounting these on production rigs be stuck with an expensive stand they’ll never use? (Not saying the stand is or should be worth $1k, just musing about the other side of things here)

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#58

I doubt the PCI solution is “yet to be announced”? The cost argument strikes me as an arbitrary assessment since it’s very hard to compare this figure against any other, even for equivalent hardware. Longevity is a factor here. Given that Thunderbolt is effectively PCI on a wire, and that macOS supports external GPUs now, you can already get reliability and functionality with a Mac Mini.

The issue is getting the same power, expandability, and degree of future-proofing. Then there’s Intel ME and what-else-lives-inside, and for that I find the T2 encryption and boot restrictions to be a good thing. In the age of Huawei making the news, I’d prefer a company that walks the walk on privacy, wouldn’t you?

I submit to you that this new machine looks to me future-proof for a decade. If you’re not happy about the cost it could be that it’s not aimed at you. I don’t have the budget for it but I distinctly remember laptops and workstations costing $10k, and it does not surprise me, and I’m not unhappy about it. Is it my type of Mac? When I can afford it, yes. And until then it’s still a yes, except I can’t afford it.

But it’s not an unreasonable price point.

#59

I think we’re looking at the same thing but seeing two different images here:

I don’t disagree with you, all I’m saying is I have had a blank check and a budget of $1500 - 3300 for something decent from Apple for awhile, but beyond the Mac Mini, they’ve failed to deliver for the previous 3 years, and nonsense like a thousand dollar price tag for a metal stick doesn’t give me much hope that that will change any time soon, “comparable pricing in the pro market” or no.

I’m sure the Mac Pro will be future proof for a decade - I wish they’d apply at least a fraction of that mentality for their products aimed at other use cases, too!

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#60

Also, w/r/t yr comment on Huawei and T2, I am extremely cynical about Apple’s commitment to privacy beyond it’s need to push brand awareness and ‘trust’ as a lead up to their roll out of Apple credit cards ‘services’ and more and more luxury toys to consume content.

I’m also deeply skeptical of trampling on the right to repair movement with one foot while standing on the soap box re: consumer rights with the other.

As a working artist, educator and hopefully critical thinker about the ideological assumptions built into technology, Apple has been bankrupt in all those categories for years. Frankly, Huawei and anything coming out of Shenzhen feels waaay more exciting and vital these days than anything Apple has done for a long time.

There’s a Stockhausen quote about his relationship to consumer technology, where he says that he didn’t feel compelled to build his own oscillators, tape machines, etc, because “industry will provide me with what I need”. I used to agree with him, but here we are…

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#61

@sunbeamer i think at least from a marketing perspective it’s pretty clearly worse. it’s somewhat surprising that a brand as image conscious as apple would actually make and and display that “pro stand, 999” image at their biggest event. at least with the monitor, they can claim that it’s competitive with much more expensive reference monitors. even if some other stand can theoretically cost that much, who is going to believe it’s worth it? also, “stand sold separately but our propriety mount only accepts aforementioned stand, you need a $200 dongle to use the industry standard” is just so apple.

random aside, i have been in the “pro video editor” industry that has been the focus of all these controversies for quiet awhile—if i were able to set aside imposter syndrome i could probably be described as a lower-mid level professional editor—and the whole debate over whether apple is adequately addressing the needs of professionals has always been super surreal to me. i’ve worked or interviewed all over LA at post houses of varying levels of prestige, and i have never met anyone who is as invested in the debate as most people seem to be online. more accomplished editors than myself cut bigger projects on worse gear than my work imac pro all the time, and they don’t even seem to give it a second thought. so whenever i hear “this is a machine for pro users” i get somewhat confused and a little worried that i am not actually meeting the right people.

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