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Gonna leave this here from the official press release as it seems quite a few people have missed this point: "In addition to the new iMac Pro, Apple is working
by tomduncalf 9y ago
Gonna leave this here from the official press release as it seems quite a few people have missed this point:
"In addition to the new iMac Pro, Apple is working on a completely redesigned, next-generation Mac Pro architected for pro customers who need the highest-end, high-throughput system in a modular design, as well as a new high-end pro display."
https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/imac-pro-most-powerful-mac-arrives-december/ https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2017/06/imac-pro-most-powerfu...
Also, I want that black keyboard!
- slg 9y agoThat is just confusing. There will be a modular Mac Pro that is totally different from this iMac Pro? That leaves me to wonder who exactly this iMac Pro is targeted at.
- spike021 9y agoI'm sure there are still professionals who would prefer pre-packaged solutions. Sure, many prefer being able to continually upgrade and add to their setups as well. Just a different kind of sub-market, I think.
- jordache 9y agohow is a mac pro not a pre-packaged solution? You choose from a few pre-configured setups if you wish.
- spike021 9y agoFor one, it doesn't have a display included that is already proven to work precisely with the components that are packaged.
- coldtea 9y agoIn that the iMac displays are some of the best in the industry in a very competitive price (competitive displays cost nearly the same for the display alone).
- slg 9y agoThe biggest problem is that the effective lifespan of a good display is much longer than a high performance computer. Even ignoring the compromises made to the computer to allow for the two to be merged, you are simply wasting money upgrading the monitor every time the computer needs to be upgraded. By attaching the two together this machine is even less practical to upgrade than the old trashcan Mac Pro.
- greedo 9y agoYup. I bought the 30" ACD in 2006. It's still running fine now, though a bit of image retention is creeping in.
- CleanCut 9y agoI bought my 30" ACD's in 2008, 2009 and 2011. Two have died. My last one is starting to wig out. The new 5k LG monitor is brighter and sharper, but it's only about 3/4 the physical screen space. Funny how some things go backwards and other things go forwards. My 3 monitors have been used for 4 generations of Macs, though. Definitely agree that monitors live longer than the underlying computer.
- coldtea 9y agoWell, not the best argument for monitor's staying power. Compared to 2006's ACD, new monitors have bigger brightness, better saturation, far wider color gamut, better viewing angles, AND double+ the resolution.
- greedo 9y agoIn today's world of disposable gear, I think lasting over 11 years is pretty darn good.
- abakker 9y agoThe iMac pro will fit in a big pelican case and be good for on-site video workloads. this is a real need, and probably accounts for a lot of the mac pro trashcan use now.
- killjoywashere 9y agoArt gallery receptionists. Studio executive receptionists, etc.
- tomduncalf 9y agoIf this is $4,999, it leaves me to wonder what the Mac Pro will cost! If I was in the market for a machine like this, I'd be tempted to try and convince myself, but for my needs I can't see me moving away from a laptop again.
- coldtea 9y agoPeople who want a very cpu-capable Mac but don't care for the display in the iMac Pro?
- benologist 9y agoNext year's Mac Pro is up to 18 months away, they made this because that's a long time to leave developer communities discussing Windows and Linux alternatives.
- slantyyz 9y agoBut you still have to wait 6 months to get an iMac Pro. Releasing the iMac Pro in December 2017 may as well be considered a 2018 release.
- threeseed 9y agoWhat developers are needing a Mac Pro ? Unless you're doing machine learning and then chances are you're either doing it in the cloud or you already have a specd out white box. Otherwise Macbook Pro has been more than sufficient.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- irrational 9y agoDoesn't that depend on what kind of developer you are? If you are just doing coding then anything that can run your ide and 3-4 browsers will work, but many developers also need to run raster and/or vector software, video software (even though I'm a coder I still have to do image and video work on a fairly regular basis), database software, etc. I have so many tabs open in my browsers that they often are using 4-8 gigs of memory concurrently. My ide often takes up another few gigs of memory. Photoshop takes up quite a bit of memory. I run 2 large monitors off of my computer which takes a bit of processing power. And so forth. In my experience it isn't to hard to push a mackbook pro to its limits.
- nileshtrivedi 9y agoImagine your test suite running every time you finish a line of code or save the file and report errors in real-time. We can make use of all the computing power we can get.
- andyfleming 9y agoI would guess that it's for people that want something more powerful before the new Mac Pro comes out. I don't think it's supposed to be out until 2018. Maybe they will be releasing it next year at WWDC.
- Karunamon 9y agoHow so? The iMac has always been the all-in-one device with laptopish internals. A bigscreen Macbook Pro basically. That makes the targeting simple: People who want the power of a *pro series device but don't care much about the upgradeability beyond storage and memory.
- JustSomeNobody 9y agoStop gap. There are some pros who need a very powerful machine, but Apple won't have the Mac Pro ready this year (see the link someone else posted to Daring Fireball).
- galfarragem 9y ago> That leaves me to wonder who exactly this iMac Pro is targeted at. CG artists, graphic workers and everyone that require a fast computer with a great screen but is not interested in being an hardware hobbyist. There's life beyond HN.
- intoverflow2 9y ago> That leaves me to wonder who exactly this iMac Pro is targeted at. People who would have bought the Mac Pro. I think it's obvious that this was supposed to replace it in the lineup. With the announcement that a Mac Pro is back on the cards I think this becomes a confused product. Locking $5Ks worth of computing power into a disposable shell boggles my mind a bit.
- wnevets 9y ago>Also, I want that black keyboard! is this satire?
- z1mm32m4n 9y agoEvery white Apple keyboard I've owned has yellowed within months. Meanwhile, my black MacBook Air keyboard looks nearly the exact same as it did when I bought it four years ago. Like OP, I also thought that the black keyboard was long overdue.
- ovao 9y agoI haven't had that problem. Regularly cleaning the keys with isopropyl alchohol seems to work just fine.
- tomduncalf 9y agoNo, I genuinely thought it looked nice! Although I can't use the Apple keyboards for extended periods of time these days anyway as I use an MS ergonomic keyboard - can't see Apple releasing one of those...
- coldtea 9y agoOr, you know, a legitimate preference. People like cool looking stuff. Welcome to earth.
- Slackwise 9y agoSure, cool looking stuff is great, but if you type for 8+ hours a day, you might want to consider something that won't give you RSI. I mean, there's no lack of cool looking mechanical keyboards, even ones that match Apple products: https://input.club/k-type/ https://input.club/k-type/ (That one is even USB-C and fully programmable/hackable with an open source firmware.)
- coldtea 9y ago>Sure, cool looking stuff is great, but if you type for 8+ hours a day, you might want to consider something that won't give you RSI. Not sure what you have in mind, but split and "ergonomic" keyboard designs have never been shown to prevent or limit RSI. They're just a marketing gimmick. http://www.healthytyping.com/articles/why-you-should-not-use-ergonomic-keyboards/ http://www.healthytyping.com/articles/why-you-should-not-use...
- DoofusOfDeath 9y agoIt sounds like the target audience for the new Mac Pro will be people who can afford to spend $10k on a quad-CPU machine. I'm sure those people will be happy. But what I want is an upgradable / self-servicable machine that costs under $3k. I hope Apple isn't about to miss the plot again.
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- orik 9y agoon an 18 core machine
- zymhan 9y agoKeep dreaming bud. If you want upgradeability and self-serviceability, build it yourself.
- e40 9y agoYou mean like the previous Mac Pro?
- rspeer 9y agoYeah, I had a 2008 Mac Pro that was still a damn good machine when I stopped using it in 2012, because I had upgraded its RAM and its hard disk.
- joevandyk 9y agoI'm still using my Mac Pro from 2008! Upgraded the memory and video card. The colors on the display are completely wonky in the past year so it's being regulated to a plex server. I'm probably paying way too much in energy.
- LeifCarrotson 9y agoI (and the parent) want this - and don't mind doing it ourselves - on Mac-supported, stable hardware. A supported, stable, updateable Hackintosh. Please, Apple, sell me a big Apple motherboard, a quality case, and write OS-X with boot and driver software that supports various CPUs, RAM, storage, GPUs, power supplies, and peripherals. You know, like Windows and Linux have done for years. Whitelist or blacklist as necessary to make it reliable and dependable, but no more than necessary. The model works - but Apple doesn't work with the model, which is why my current machine isn't a Mac anymore.
- acchow 9y agoNo, this wasn't missed. Daring Fireball already talked about this 2 months ago: https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives https://daringfireball.net/2017/04/the_mac_pro_lives
- ktta 9y agoIf you want a keyboard that looks similar and has good quality but not for macOS, I've heard good things about Surface Keyboard https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/d/surface-keyboard/8r3rqvvflp4k https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/d/surface-keyboard/8r3...
- saulrh 9y agoI'm using Surface Ergonomic keyboards at home and at work, can confirm good build quality. I won't weigh in on quality of typing experience. Everybody I know says that I type like I'm trying to beat my keyboard to death, so while I like typing on them quite a lot, I don't know if that'd transfer to someone else. Only hiccup I've found is that you need Bluetooth 4.0 for the new low-power state, so you'll probably have to buy a dongle even if you have a brand-new fancy laptop.
- seanp2k2 9y agoOne caveat with the MS wireless keyboards (with the dongle, since Bluetooth and I don't get along): the ergo MS keyboard I have had random connection issues with the normal Apple USB -> USB-C adapter which is required to plug it into my 15" tbMBP. I finally guessed that this is due to it being a USB2 devices plugged into a USB3 port. https://support.apple.com/kb/PH19094?locale=en_US https://support.apple.com/kb/PH19094?locale=en_US mentions this specifically, but briefly enough that it's easy to miss: """If the device is connected to a USB hub: Make sure the device and the hub are the same speed. Connect USB 3.0 SuperSpeed devices to a USB 3.0 SuperSpeed HUB, USB 2.0 Hi-Speed devices to a USB 2.0 Hi-Speed hub, and so on.""" I bought a cheap-ish Mac-specific (not that it should matter) powered USB 2.0 hub off Amazon. Plugged the kbd, mouse, and my HiFiMeDIY DAC into it. All now work well without nearly as many issues.
- nsxwolf 9y agoI get that they want a common design language and to simplify supply chain/manufacturing, but why take those compromised butterfly switches and make a desktop keyboard out of them? The previous scissor switch keys were OK. A big improvement over their previous garbage membrane keyboards in fact. But the new keys are really a necessary evil to make thinner laptops - why hamper the desktop experience with them? On the desktops they have the luxury of non-portability, so why not a new mechanical keyboard design for the iMac and Mac Pro?
- arianvanp 9y agoI wish apple would rerelease their old ALPS SKCM keyboards. They were amazing. I really do not like the butterfly switches. https://deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_SKCM_Salmon https://deskthority.net/wiki/Alps_SKCM_Salmon
- astrodust 9y agoWhy would Apple make a "mechanical" keyboard when there's already multiple vendors like Matias (http://matias.ca/tactilepro/ http://matias.ca/tactilepro/) that make several models of that exact thing? Personally I think the new keyboards are really good, there's a lot less travel on each key which makes typing more efficient. Going back to an old keyboard with full travel feels like hammering on a typewriter.
- nsxwolf 9y agoThat Matias keyboard, quite frankly, looks like a piece of junk from the G3 iMac era. Apple could build a mechanical keyboard with their characteristic design and build quality. I think the new butterfly switch is useable, but I don't share your enthusiasm. I have not been able to fully adjust to them and I still make typing errors from my fingers sliding off more than I'd like.
- astrodust 9y agoApple could build a lot of things, but they don't unless there's considerable demand, and mechanical keyboards have very narrow appeal. Matias isn't the only vendor and that's not the only model of mechanical keyboard they make. If you're a mechanical keyboard enthusiast you're living in the golden age of options. You can custom-build your own keyboard, pick individual keycaps, switches, and more. There's vendors like http://www.wasdkeyboards.com http://www.wasdkeyboards.com that are basically "Build-a-Bear" for keyboards.
- Shivetya 9y agooddly the only issue I am disappointed with the new iMacs is that you cannot get the space gray on the standard line
- tqkxzugoaupvwqr 9y agoI think this is devilish clever by Apple. If you see a space gray iMac you know this guy shelled out a lot of money and means business. Apple made the iMac Pro an even greater status symbol than the iMac already is.
- spike021 9y ago>If you see a space gray iMac [...] I'm not sure how that matters? This iMac in most cases won't be portable, so the only people who see it will be the ones using it or at least working with those who do. You sort of make it sound equivalent to the old thing about how Macbooks had lit-up Apple logos on the shell and people would know "oh this person spent thousands on their Apple laptop..." But I don't think it's the same situation here.
- tqkxzugoaupvwqr 9y agoYou can see lots of people’s (video editors, etc.) workstations when they make an Instagram story or vlog in their apartment. Besides MacBook Pros, I see iMacs the most often.
- mgiannopoulos 9y agoa) People have meetings with clients in their offices. b) Big execs want to have the best and show it off to staff as well
- seanp2k2 9y agoBlack keyboard and trackpad, but a tenkeyless for the keyboard please!