4 ms·

I really feel like you're missing the point of "That might work for Marco, since he has a lot of money" comments. You've summed up, very neatly, why he's talen

I really feel like you're missing the point of "That might work for Marco, since he has a lot of money" comments. You've summed up, very neatly, why he's talented and worked hard and has earned his money. But nobody's claiming he didn't earn his bunches of money. What they're stating is a simple fact: six thousand dollar computers might make sense for somebody with a bunch of money. But not for people with more modest means.

scarface74 7y ago
How many people with “modest means” need the Mac Pro? Like I said, my parents were the definition of middle class - a teacher and a factory worker - and I had a $4000 computer setup in 1992 going to college (see specs in another post). That would be $7300 inflation adjusted.
- BackBackBack 7y ago
  That's the whole issue. There should be a mac between the mac mini and mac pro as right now they are only addressing the extremes. And it should not be one with a screen attached to it and no expansion.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    And a fully deck out Mac Mini wouldn’t suit the needs of an average self employed developer? What expansion do you need that you couldn’t do externally on an iMac if you have “modest means” and so assume modest requirements?
    - BackBackBack 7y ago
      Mac mini has no expansion and is very thermally constrained. If you are a web developer and never do anything else it might be fine, but there are many kinds of developers, and some need custom hardware, custom PCI cards, multiple network adapters, normal consumer grade GPUs not on an external bus. In short, not the most extreme processing power but customization options. To be able to change hardware without throwing away the whole machine. Anyway, I love how Apple has convinced everybody that a ~$3000-$4000 machine cannot be pro and is not worthy of their engineering prowess because only modest, unsuccessful developers would spend such a small amount in a computer.
      - scarface74 7y ago
        So in your personal case - a $4000 iMac wouldn’t meet your needs? The performance difference between an external GPU would be a deal breaker?
        BackBackBack 7y ago
        After this I’m not answering any more of your questions because you are clearly not reading my responses. But to others that might stumble upon this thread: - I already have a monitor, 3 in fact. I do not need to pay for another, specially one that is glued to the cpu. - The gpu is not the only hardware I listed. - I do not want to cover my desk with external boxes and adapters, each requiring their own psu, that can only be used within 2ft, forcing them to be right next to the computer negating any “benefits” of taking them out of the machine in the first place for a desktop that never moves. - I do not want to pay for the overhead an external box will bring, in money, noise, or in mess to my desk. An iMac is a fine machine. It is not the machine for everyone.
    - _ph_ 7y ago
      A desktop graphics card, a larger desktop CPU. Expandable storage.
  - dwaite 7y ago
    You are nicely discounting the model that actually exists between the Mac mini and Mac Pro.
  - muro 7y ago
    Exactly. Many of us loved the old Mac Pro. Great that the iMac and Mac mini works for many, some of us just don't like them. Apple is in their right to build computers they want, we are in our right to not buy them and complain they no longer build the machine we care about.
- JohnBooty 7y ago
  You're posting in bad faith. I didn't say "modest means." I said "more modest means" -- compared to a guy who made major cash thanks to an IPO. The vast majority of people on Earth, engineers included, have means more modest than that. Second, I never said "need." However, there are clearly a lot of folks who would benefit from top-tier desktop power (namely, developers) and would pay for it, but can't pay $6K. Like I said, my parents were the definition of middle class - a teacher and a factory worker - and I had a $4000 computer setup in 1992 going to college (see specs in another post). That would be $7300 inflation adjusted. It's hard to imagine anything less relevant than this. For oh, so many reasons. First of all, household median income in 1992 was about $30K unadjusted: https://www.multpl.com/us-median-income/table/by-year https://www.multpl.com/us-median-income/table/by-year Which was also roughly the average salary for teachers: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1993/10/20/07aft.h13.html https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1993/10/20/07aft.h13.html So your family like had roughly 2X median income. But that's besides the point. Besides, maybe they had 10 kids or something. Can the average middle class US household sustain a $6K or $7 expense? Yes, with significant effort. And this made a lot of sense in 1992, because that's what a powerful desktop system cost and the alternative was not having a powerful desktop system. So your parents made the necessary sacrifices, and since you're posting on HN 30 years later I'm going to assume it was a fruitful investment. However, asking people to pay $6K for a computer in 2019 is an entirely different proposition. You can get that level of computing power for a fraction of the price. I'm not particularly mad about the Mac Pro, mind you. There are alternatives and nobody's forcing me to buy one. I do, however, think that -- to return to the topic of this discussion -- that claiming Apple's "listening" to developers w.r.t. hardware is pretty laughable. Most developers want a fast-as-fuck CPU in a box, and many are perfectly willing to pay an "Apple tax", but not thousands of dollars worth.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    Even in 1992, that was way more expensive than the equivalent 386 PC with a better monitor. A laser printer was definitely not the norm. But the Mac Pro wasn’t meant for your average developer. I doubt very many consumers would buy this at all. It’s aimed at businesses and professionals where a $6000 outlay is nothing. Do you really think after 2 years and building up an internal team of “pro users”, Apple didn’t design this product for its target market? Apple didn’t say they were “listening to developers”. They said they were listening to pro users. Are developers a subset of that? Yes. Have a lot of high end developers gravitated toward the iMac Pro and high end iMacs? Yes. If geeks were expecting Apple to cater to lower end needs, they haven’t been following Apple for the last two decades. They aren’t asking ordinary users to shell out six grand. They even made the Mac Mini much more of a midrange computer than it was before.

scarface74 7y ago

How many people with “modest means” need the Mac Pro? Like I said, my parents were the definition of middle class - a teacher and a factory worker - and I had a $4000 computer setup in 1992 going to college (see specs in another post). That would be $7300 inflation adjusted.

BackBackBack 7y ago
That's the whole issue. There should be a mac between the mac mini and mac pro as right now they are only addressing the extremes. And it should not be one with a screen attached to it and no expansion.
- scarface74 7y ago
  And a fully deck out Mac Mini wouldn’t suit the needs of an average self employed developer? What expansion do you need that you couldn’t do externally on an iMac if you have “modest means” and so assume modest requirements?
  - BackBackBack 7y ago
    Mac mini has no expansion and is very thermally constrained. If you are a web developer and never do anything else it might be fine, but there are many kinds of developers, and some need custom hardware, custom PCI cards, multiple network adapters, normal consumer grade GPUs not on an external bus. In short, not the most extreme processing power but customization options. To be able to change hardware without throwing away the whole machine. Anyway, I love how Apple has convinced everybody that a ~$3000-$4000 machine cannot be pro and is not worthy of their engineering prowess because only modest, unsuccessful developers would spend such a small amount in a computer.
    - scarface74 7y ago
      So in your personal case - a $4000 iMac wouldn’t meet your needs? The performance difference between an external GPU would be a deal breaker?
      - BackBackBack 7y ago
        After this I’m not answering any more of your questions because you are clearly not reading my responses. But to others that might stumble upon this thread: - I already have a monitor, 3 in fact. I do not need to pay for another, specially one that is glued to the cpu. - The gpu is not the only hardware I listed. - I do not want to cover my desk with external boxes and adapters, each requiring their own psu, that can only be used within 2ft, forcing them to be right next to the computer negating any “benefits” of taking them out of the machine in the first place for a desktop that never moves. - I do not want to pay for the overhead an external box will bring, in money, noise, or in mess to my desk. An iMac is a fine machine. It is not the machine for everyone.
  - _ph_ 7y ago
    A desktop graphics card, a larger desktop CPU. Expandable storage.
- dwaite 7y ago
  You are nicely discounting the model that actually exists between the Mac mini and Mac Pro.
- muro 7y ago
  Exactly. Many of us loved the old Mac Pro. Great that the iMac and Mac mini works for many, some of us just don't like them. Apple is in their right to build computers they want, we are in our right to not buy them and complain they no longer build the machine we care about.
JohnBooty 7y ago
You're posting in bad faith. I didn't say "modest means." I said "more modest means" -- compared to a guy who made major cash thanks to an IPO. The vast majority of people on Earth, engineers included, have means more modest than that. Second, I never said "need." However, there are clearly a lot of folks who would benefit from top-tier desktop power (namely, developers) and would pay for it, but can't pay $6K. Like I said, my parents were the definition of middle class - a teacher and a factory worker - and I had a $4000 computer setup in 1992 going to college (see specs in another post). That would be $7300 inflation adjusted. It's hard to imagine anything less relevant than this. For oh, so many reasons. First of all, household median income in 1992 was about $30K unadjusted: https://www.multpl.com/us-median-income/table/by-year https://www.multpl.com/us-median-income/table/by-year Which was also roughly the average salary for teachers: https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1993/10/20/07aft.h13.html https://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1993/10/20/07aft.h13.html So your family like had roughly 2X median income. But that's besides the point. Besides, maybe they had 10 kids or something. Can the average middle class US household sustain a $6K or $7 expense? Yes, with significant effort. And this made a lot of sense in 1992, because that's what a powerful desktop system cost and the alternative was not having a powerful desktop system. So your parents made the necessary sacrifices, and since you're posting on HN 30 years later I'm going to assume it was a fruitful investment. However, asking people to pay $6K for a computer in 2019 is an entirely different proposition. You can get that level of computing power for a fraction of the price. I'm not particularly mad about the Mac Pro, mind you. There are alternatives and nobody's forcing me to buy one. I do, however, think that -- to return to the topic of this discussion -- that claiming Apple's "listening" to developers w.r.t. hardware is pretty laughable. Most developers want a fast-as-fuck CPU in a box, and many are perfectly willing to pay an "Apple tax", but not thousands of dollars worth.
- scarface74 7y ago
  Even in 1992, that was way more expensive than the equivalent 386 PC with a better monitor. A laser printer was definitely not the norm. But the Mac Pro wasn’t meant for your average developer. I doubt very many consumers would buy this at all. It’s aimed at businesses and professionals where a $6000 outlay is nothing. Do you really think after 2 years and building up an internal team of “pro users”, Apple didn’t design this product for its target market? Apple didn’t say they were “listening to developers”. They said they were listening to pro users. Are developers a subset of that? Yes. Have a lot of high end developers gravitated toward the iMac Pro and high end iMacs? Yes. If geeks were expecting Apple to cater to lower end needs, they haven’t been following Apple for the last two decades. They aren’t asking ordinary users to shell out six grand. They even made the Mac Mini much more of a midrange computer than it was before.