4 ms·

base price of $11k to have an Apple display + desktop. wow. no thanks.

by n42 7y ago

secabeen 7y ago
When you're paying a graphic artist $80k/yr in salary, is $3k a year for 4 years for this tool really that out of line?
- OrangeMango 7y ago
  What else can you get for $3k per year? I was seriously thinking about revisiting the days of my old G5 cheesegrater, but once I saw the price... I just can't justify it. EDIT - I just thought about it some more. Apple is saying this is modular. If they support this thing for 5-10 years, allowing for upgrading the CPU, etc. Maybe it can pencil out. I want to know what socket that Xeon is, and if Intel will keep producing chips for a long time on that socket. If Moore's law is dead...
- petepete 7y ago
  True, in cases like that it's an investment. But if I didn't _need_ macOS I'm not sure I'd go Mac Pro over a HP Z8 G4. If you're paying £11k for a workstation you might as well get one with 28 cores and 96GB of RAM.
  - mlevental 7y ago
    what exactly does someone need a mac like that for? what kind of software that only runs on mac os needs a computer like that?
    - petepete 7y ago
      Good question, and I don't know. There are some tools like Final Cut that won't work on Windows but most creative pro tools are cross platform. I didn't make it clear in my post above, but I was speculating. I definitely don't need macOS for anything. The only reason I have a MBP is for Capture One which won't run on Linux.
    - panpanna 7y ago
      Video editing?
      - mlevental 7y ago
        adobe premiere runs on windows?
- n42 7y ago
  no, it is not, but they are pricing out the "prosumer" and small business and leaning quite hard into mid-size and above professional.
  - cududa 7y ago
    So you’re not the target market. Apple didn’t become the most valuable company in the world by making products for everyone.
    - jwommack 7y ago
      When they did that they were never more than 10% of the personal computer market much less the world. Making products for everyone is exactly how they did it, with universally popular iPods, iPhones, and wearables. The two biggest revenue drivers for them are iPhones and Services(Music, Pay, App Store, etc) (https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/Q2%20FY19%20Consolidated%20Financial%20Statements.pdf https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/Q2%20FY19%20Consolidated...), they sell almost as much in iPads alone as they do in Macs. Those are all services that they famously made broadly popular and target towards the average consumer. It's only really in the Mac space that they target primarily the "high end" consumers.
    - fgonzag 7y ago
      They didn't? I thought they became the most valuable company in the world by making smart phones, a product for everyone.
  - peapicker 7y ago
    In terms of relative purchase power, in 1987 you could build a "newest processor" 80386 with a then-huge 80Mb drive in a tower case with you basic setup and pay about $3,000 when building it yourself. According to my inflation calculator, that's $6,182.61 in today's dollars. In 1987, PC's Limited (later renamed Dell) 386-16 included a 16MHz Intel 80386 CPU, 1MB RAM, a 1.2MB floppy drive, a 40MB hard drive, and a monochrome video card for $4,799. We just tend forget how powerful and cheap Moore's law made things. In terms of relative inflation-adjusted dollars, many of us old-timers have already spent as much or more than Apple is asking multiple times on 'prosumer' machines.
- opencl 7y ago
  Sure a high end workstation can be a worthwhile investment but the internals are just extremely underwhelming for the price. Even the iMac Pro seems like an incredible bargain in comparison. The base model Mac Pro is $1000 more expensive than the base model iMac Pro but has 1/4 the storage, a slower GPU, and lacks the presumably very expensive built in 5K display. RAM is the same and CPU appears to be similar. Now they haven't revealed upgrade pricing but I'm sure they are going to charge a similarly large markup and the top models will probably be north of $20K. Clearly people are willing to pay a premium for MacOS but I think a lot of people will start asking themselves if it is really worth something like $5-10K over similar workstation hardware from other vendors.
  - deleted 7y ago
    [deleted]
- Youden 7y ago
  Considering what you can get for $3k a year from a non-Apple builder, I think it is out of line, unless you _really_ need Mac OS. Puget Systems for example sells purpose-built systems optimized for a particular application. A 3D design and animation workstation goes for ~$3k: https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommended/Recommended-Systems-for-Cinema-4D-166/Buy_186 https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommended/Recommended-Systems...

base price of $11k to have an Apple display + desktop. wow. no thanks.

by n42 7y ago

base price of $11k to have an Apple display + desktop. wow. no thanks.

secabeen 7y ago

When you're paying a graphic artist $80k/yr in salary, is $3k a year for 4 years for this tool really that out of line?

OrangeMango 7y ago
What else can you get for $3k per year? I was seriously thinking about revisiting the days of my old G5 cheesegrater, but once I saw the price... I just can't justify it. EDIT - I just thought about it some more. Apple is saying this is modular. If they support this thing for 5-10 years, allowing for upgrading the CPU, etc. Maybe it can pencil out. I want to know what socket that Xeon is, and if Intel will keep producing chips for a long time on that socket. If Moore's law is dead...
petepete 7y ago
True, in cases like that it's an investment. But if I didn't _need_ macOS I'm not sure I'd go Mac Pro over a HP Z8 G4. If you're paying £11k for a workstation you might as well get one with 28 cores and 96GB of RAM.
- mlevental 7y ago
  what exactly does someone need a mac like that for? what kind of software that only runs on mac os needs a computer like that?
  - petepete 7y ago
    Good question, and I don't know. There are some tools like Final Cut that won't work on Windows but most creative pro tools are cross platform. I didn't make it clear in my post above, but I was speculating. I definitely don't need macOS for anything. The only reason I have a MBP is for Capture One which won't run on Linux.
  - panpanna 7y ago
    Video editing?
    - mlevental 7y ago
      adobe premiere runs on windows?
n42 7y ago
no, it is not, but they are pricing out the "prosumer" and small business and leaning quite hard into mid-size and above professional.
- cududa 7y ago
  So you’re not the target market. Apple didn’t become the most valuable company in the world by making products for everyone.
  - jwommack 7y ago
    When they did that they were never more than 10% of the personal computer market much less the world. Making products for everyone is exactly how they did it, with universally popular iPods, iPhones, and wearables. The two biggest revenue drivers for them are iPhones and Services(Music, Pay, App Store, etc) (https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/Q2%20FY19%20Consolidated%20Financial%20Statements.pdf https://www.apple.com/newsroom/pdfs/Q2%20FY19%20Consolidated...), they sell almost as much in iPads alone as they do in Macs. Those are all services that they famously made broadly popular and target towards the average consumer. It's only really in the Mac space that they target primarily the "high end" consumers.
  - fgonzag 7y ago
    They didn't? I thought they became the most valuable company in the world by making smart phones, a product for everyone.
- peapicker 7y ago
  In terms of relative purchase power, in 1987 you could build a "newest processor" 80386 with a then-huge 80Mb drive in a tower case with you basic setup and pay about $3,000 when building it yourself. According to my inflation calculator, that's $6,182.61 in today's dollars. In 1987, PC's Limited (later renamed Dell) 386-16 included a 16MHz Intel 80386 CPU, 1MB RAM, a 1.2MB floppy drive, a 40MB hard drive, and a monochrome video card for $4,799. We just tend forget how powerful and cheap Moore's law made things. In terms of relative inflation-adjusted dollars, many of us old-timers have already spent as much or more than Apple is asking multiple times on 'prosumer' machines.
opencl 7y ago
Sure a high end workstation can be a worthwhile investment but the internals are just extremely underwhelming for the price. Even the iMac Pro seems like an incredible bargain in comparison. The base model Mac Pro is $1000 more expensive than the base model iMac Pro but has 1/4 the storage, a slower GPU, and lacks the presumably very expensive built in 5K display. RAM is the same and CPU appears to be similar. Now they haven't revealed upgrade pricing but I'm sure they are going to charge a similarly large markup and the top models will probably be north of $20K. Clearly people are willing to pay a premium for MacOS but I think a lot of people will start asking themselves if it is really worth something like $5-10K over similar workstation hardware from other vendors.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
Youden 7y ago
Considering what you can get for $3k a year from a non-Apple builder, I think it is out of line, unless you _really_ need Mac OS. Puget Systems for example sells purpose-built systems optimized for a particular application. A 3D design and animation workstation goes for ~$3k: https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommended/Recommended-Systems-for-Cinema-4D-166/Buy_186 https://www.pugetsystems.com/recommended/Recommended-Systems...