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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 majori

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.
- JohnBooty 7y ago
  But the Mac Pro wasn’t meant for your average developer. [...] Apple didn’t say they were “listening to developers”. They said they were listening to pro users. Yes. That's the entire point. Developers are grumbling because Apple's listening to other pro users, but not them. I feel like you're at a point where you completely understand Apple's stance ("we are listening to some pro users, but not developers in particular") and some developers' complaints ("boy, we wish Apple would listen and give us a relatively affordable desktop class machine, without a monitor") but are still, for some reason, arguing just for the thrill of it. They even made the Mac Mini much more of a midrange computer than it was before. More of a midrange computer, but not really comparable to high-end consumer desktop performance. It may be illuminating to take a look at other manufacturer's machines using this CPU. If you don't feel like clicking the link, I'll tell you: $1,000 laptops. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Core+i7-8700B For a few hundred more (roughly $1400) you can get a desktop PC with a high-end desktop Core i7, giving you anywhere from 20%-60% more CPU performance, high-end GPU, etc. I'd pay $2K for an Apple version of that, but to option an iMac up to similar specs will have you pushing $3K.
  - scarface74 7y ago
    If you want to get a 6 Core I7 with a high end GPU and 16GB of RAM. Mac Mini 6 Core I7 16GB RAM - $1500 BlackMagic eGPU - $700 $2200 27” 5K iMac 6 Core i9 3.66Ghz 16GB RAM,256GB SSD - $2800. A 5K display by itself is going to set you back $1300. So now you’re at $1500 for the Mac itself.
    - JohnBooty 7y ago
      Mac Mini 6 Core I7 16GB RAM - $1500 BlackMagic eGPU - $700 $2200 So for a mere $2,200 we can have: 1. A two year-old GPU inside the BlackMagic that has roughly roughly half the performance of the GTX 1080 Ti that was state of the art two years ago. Also, for this privilege, we pay $700 for this $200 GPU. https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+Pro+580&id=3933 https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+Pro+58... 2. Whatever nightmares come with eGPU usage in 2019. At a minimum, it's another box, another fan, another power supply, and a cable. And that's if the software side of things actually works flawlessly in 2019 which, last I checked, was still a little hinky. 3. A CPU that is going to be significantly slower than a well-cooled desktop i7 due to thermal issues. https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/11/14/testing-thermal-throttling-and-performance-in-the-2018-i7-mac-mini https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/11/14/testing-thermal-t... Even if you just subtract the eGPU (I don't think most developers care too much about that) this is why a significant number of developers just sort of want a fast CPU in a desktop box. It could literally just be the Mac Mini guts in a bigger box.

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.

JohnBooty 7y ago
But the Mac Pro wasn’t meant for your average developer. [...] Apple didn’t say they were “listening to developers”. They said they were listening to pro users. Yes. That's the entire point. Developers are grumbling because Apple's listening to other pro users, but not them. I feel like you're at a point where you completely understand Apple's stance ("we are listening to some pro users, but not developers in particular") and some developers' complaints ("boy, we wish Apple would listen and give us a relatively affordable desktop class machine, without a monitor") but are still, for some reason, arguing just for the thrill of it. They even made the Mac Mini much more of a midrange computer than it was before. More of a midrange computer, but not really comparable to high-end consumer desktop performance. It may be illuminating to take a look at other manufacturer's machines using this CPU. If you don't feel like clicking the link, I'll tell you: $1,000 laptops. https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-1-d&q=Core+i7-8700B For a few hundred more (roughly $1400) you can get a desktop PC with a high-end desktop Core i7, giving you anywhere from 20%-60% more CPU performance, high-end GPU, etc. I'd pay $2K for an Apple version of that, but to option an iMac up to similar specs will have you pushing $3K.
- scarface74 7y ago
  If you want to get a 6 Core I7 with a high end GPU and 16GB of RAM. Mac Mini 6 Core I7 16GB RAM - $1500 BlackMagic eGPU - $700 $2200 27” 5K iMac 6 Core i9 3.66Ghz 16GB RAM,256GB SSD - $2800. A 5K display by itself is going to set you back $1300. So now you’re at $1500 for the Mac itself.
  - JohnBooty 7y ago
    Mac Mini 6 Core I7 16GB RAM - $1500 BlackMagic eGPU - $700 $2200 So for a mere $2,200 we can have: 1. A two year-old GPU inside the BlackMagic that has roughly roughly half the performance of the GTX 1080 Ti that was state of the art two years ago. Also, for this privilege, we pay $700 for this $200 GPU. https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+Pro+580&id=3933 https://www.videocardbenchmark.net/gpu.php?gpu=Radeon+Pro+58... 2. Whatever nightmares come with eGPU usage in 2019. At a minimum, it's another box, another fan, another power supply, and a cable. And that's if the software side of things actually works flawlessly in 2019 which, last I checked, was still a little hinky. 3. A CPU that is going to be significantly slower than a well-cooled desktop i7 due to thermal issues. https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/11/14/testing-thermal-throttling-and-performance-in-the-2018-i7-mac-mini https://appleinsider.com/articles/18/11/14/testing-thermal-t... Even if you just subtract the eGPU (I don't think most developers care too much about that) this is why a significant number of developers just sort of want a fast CPU in a desktop box. It could literally just be the Mac Mini guts in a bigger box.