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> The Mac pro only has one CPU because that's all they could fit in. It wasn't a bold visionary move, it was a compromise because of the form factor. Where did

by Luc 13y ago

> The Mac pro only has one CPU because that's all they could fit in. It wasn't a bold visionary move, it was a compromise because of the form factor. Where did you get that? It sounds entirely implausible that a company renowned for its design would decide on the form factor first, and then try to fit stuff in there as well as possible...

jhasse 13y ago
Sounds plausible to me.
KaiserPro 13y ago
Because that's how design works. The end goal of the iPhone, (to take a very good example) was designed to fit in your hand. Everything else had to be crammed in to accomplish this. to give a non technical example, the london underground map sacrifices geographic accuracy for simplicity. A very large, and successful compromise. Also, where could they fit another CPU? Each one kicks out almost 180 watts of heat, and must have RAM and power to make it work. It also complicates GPU<=>CPU and GPU<=>GPU communications. You either have to shove all the GPUs on one CPU and waste lots of QPI cycles on moving RAM back and forth, or have one GPU on each CPU and build some very clever glue to allow the two GPUs to share memory. Ergo, compromise.
- l33tbro 13y ago
  You talk specs I know little about. But I got to say I'm just surprised they actually even released the damn thing. Many seem convinced (me included) that Apple would go the way of Sony, producing pithy consumer electronics and diluting their brand values of being 'forward-thinking'. I thought VFX world was mostly PC/Hackintosh based?
  - KaiserPro 13y ago
    Naa, hackintoshes are far to hard to maintain. Its either real Macs, Dell optiplexes (although I've seen a few of those hackitoshed) and HP z series(win/linux) Most of london is HP. Macs are still needed because of quicktime, and final cut (plus a few other niche products) People use the Laptops a lot, because they are actually quite good. Certainly longer lasting than anything from Sony or Toshiba.
    - l33tbro 13y ago
      Hmmm ... Final Cut? I would have thought NLE's in VFX would be mostly Avid now .. after the whole FCPX bungle last year.
      - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
        Many production houses still use Final Cut Pro 7 and will continue to do so for quite some time to come. Most smaller teams and freelancers I know are switching to Final Cut X, now that it has support for FCP7 compatibility and multi-cam editing. Features like audio syncing are a lot better in Final Cut X, and once you get used to the new interface, the workflow is a lot more convenient.
- Luc 13y ago
  Ergo, you just made it up.
  - KaiserPro 13y ago
    http://www.apple.com/uk/imac/design/ http://www.apple.com/uk/imac/design/ I'll cite apple's own website in this: One of the biggest challenges our engineers faced with this new design was how to join the front to the back. The enclosure is so thin, it’s not possible to weld the pieces using traditional methods. Formfactor first, everything else second. Hence why apple makes the products they do. I am of course willing to be convinced otherwise, perhaps you have some sources to backup your claim? edit, syntax error
    - Luc 13y ago
      > Formfactor first, everything else second. Hence why apple makes the products they do. I am sorry, but I just don't know where to start. That's not how industrial designers work, it's a caricature.
    - georgespencer 13y ago
      I think this belief that form factor comes first or somehow dictates component use is a common misconception (doesn't make it a dumb one). Apple believes that design is essentially three things: form factor + hardware inside form factor + software. The three have to play together seamlessly for the overall design to be good. We can debate on how effective they are at this, but that is what Apple believes. Steve Jobs talked about the interplay of hardware and software many times. Steve Jobs also frequently discussed compromises. He believed that consumers paid Apple to make decisions about what was useful and what wasn't. So including Flash in iOS would have meant that users could watch all web video (only 25% at launch!), but they looked at the stability and the battery life and made the decision that, no, Flash was not worth it. So Apple believes in tradeoffs. Sometimes these tradeoffs are at the cost of the aesthetic. For example the black plastic on the back of the original iPhone, or the black plastic used on the entire iPhone 3G when they wanted to increase margins and go for market share. This is design. This is a company making tradeoffs. Sometimes the tradeoffs do come to preserve the form factor. I struggle to type on my iPhone, but I was so quick on my BlackBerry that the software lagged behind me. But Apple made the tradeoff. The antennae on the iPhone 4 is a great example of Apple design. It's accomplishing so much. It means there's no need for black plastic on the device, so the aesthetic is improved. It also provides the structural rigidity for the device, which means they can make it feel super sturdy (love Samsung's aesthetic, but if you hold an iPhone 5 and a Galaxy, there's a real difference to the feel). That sort of outcome isn't the product of a guy in a turtle neck with Auto CAD putting lens flares on everything. That's serious design. Jony Ive talked a lot about the process for making the MacBook Air. They wanted to build a fast, ultraportable computer without making it one of those shitty 9" Taiwanese pieces of crap. So they had to work with Intel to build a 60% smaller Merom. Because they didn't want to compromise the internal hardware by shipping a slow processor. They had to develop Unibody so they could strip out internal fixtures that would add weight and reduce the structural integrity of the product. Commitment to the aesthetic. You've cited (it's cited, btw, not sighted) the iMac. Apple wanted to make it thinner and lighter. At the same time they wanted to ship better components inside it. So they had to keep the space inside the same size or make it bigger, or they weren't going to be able to ship the product. So they spent time developing ways to make it thinner and more aesthetically appealing without compromising the hardware components. In this instance I'd argue that deference to the hardware components came first. Much like the MacBook Air, where so much of the work went into developing a tiny logic board so the device could be full powered. tl;dr Apple makes tradeoffs on behalf of consumers. > Hence why apple makes the products they do A quickie on this: hence why is never correct. Just use hence.
rdouble 13y ago
That's pretty much how every Apple product since 1998 was developed.
- georgespencer 13y ago
  > That's pretty much how every Apple product since 1998 was developed. This feels really lazy and borderline trollish. Over the last decade or so Apple (and others!) have fairly consistently demonstrated a belief that design is multifaceted: the form factor, the software, the components inside the form factor. Increasingly we see these intersecting. The form factor for the iPhone is also the hardware: the screen and the antennae. The unibody manufacturing process for MacBook Pro means that the trendy aluminium form of the product also provides its rigidity and reduces the number of components required to hold it together. More room for batteries, which increases the battery life. Apple and Intel worked together to develop a Merom chip 60% smaller than the standard in order to ship the MacBook Air, which was at the time the thinnest notebook around. Apple doesn't design the form factor and then work out what components need to go inside it. Very often the overall design (form factor + software) is where Apple can innovate, because Apple doesn't typically manufacture components, but they frequently make compromises of design in order to accommodate hardware (and vice versa). IR receivers on the original MacBook Pro (horrible black spots on the bezel), the home button on the iPhone (an absence of hardware buttons on the front of the device would be more pleasing). The black plastic at the base of the original iPhone for Wifi (since engineered out by a combination of component and product design). People will look back on the last two or three decades as a renaissance for design. Apple has contributed, but across the board the importance of design -- and by design I mean the aforementioned intersection of form, software, and hardware -- is visible in products from Samsung, Sony, HTC. Heck even Microsoft has realised that design is more than commissioning Brian Eno to write the Windows boot music. Back to the Mac Pro: I'm sure Apple threw out a dozen designs which had space for more RAM, or which had more CPU sockets, or which had internal expansion. But Apple makes tradeoffs for the overall goal. Sometimes the tradeoffs are such that hardware suffers (I can still type way faster on a BlackBerry than on an iPhone), and some times the aesthetic is diminished (I bet the visible sensors on the iPhone 5 really rankle with Jony Ive). But to suggest that since 1998 Apple has consistently developed the form factor for products first is ludicrous.
andypants 13y ago
> It sounds entirely implausible that a company renowned for its design would decide on the form factor first, and then try to fit stuff in there as well as possible... Design has nothing to do with specs, and something to do with form factor. So yes, it sounds plausible that a company renowned for its design would focus on the design over the specs.

by Luc 13y ago

jhasse 13y ago

Sounds plausible to me.

KaiserPro 13y ago

Because that's how design works. The end goal of the iPhone, (to take a very good example) was designed to fit in your hand. Everything else had to be crammed in to accomplish this. to give a non technical example, the london underground map sacrifices geographic accuracy for simplicity. A very large, and successful compromise. Also, where could they fit another CPU? Each one kicks out almost 180 watts of heat, and must have RAM and power to make it work. It also complicates GPU<=>CPU and GPU<=>GPU communications. You either have to shove all the GPUs on one CPU and waste lots of QPI cycles on moving RAM back and forth, or have one GPU on each CPU and build some very clever glue to allow the two GPUs to share memory. Ergo, compromise.

l33tbro 13y ago
You talk specs I know little about. But I got to say I'm just surprised they actually even released the damn thing. Many seem convinced (me included) that Apple would go the way of Sony, producing pithy consumer electronics and diluting their brand values of being 'forward-thinking'. I thought VFX world was mostly PC/Hackintosh based?
- KaiserPro 13y ago
  Naa, hackintoshes are far to hard to maintain. Its either real Macs, Dell optiplexes (although I've seen a few of those hackitoshed) and HP z series(win/linux) Most of london is HP. Macs are still needed because of quicktime, and final cut (plus a few other niche products) People use the Laptops a lot, because they are actually quite good. Certainly longer lasting than anything from Sony or Toshiba.
  - l33tbro 13y ago
    Hmmm ... Final Cut? I would have thought NLE's in VFX would be mostly Avid now .. after the whole FCPX bungle last year.
    - Samuel_Michon 13y ago
      Many production houses still use Final Cut Pro 7 and will continue to do so for quite some time to come. Most smaller teams and freelancers I know are switching to Final Cut X, now that it has support for FCP7 compatibility and multi-cam editing. Features like audio syncing are a lot better in Final Cut X, and once you get used to the new interface, the workflow is a lot more convenient.
Luc 13y ago
Ergo, you just made it up.
- KaiserPro 13y ago
  http://www.apple.com/uk/imac/design/ http://www.apple.com/uk/imac/design/ I'll cite apple's own website in this: One of the biggest challenges our engineers faced with this new design was how to join the front to the back. The enclosure is so thin, it’s not possible to weld the pieces using traditional methods. Formfactor first, everything else second. Hence why apple makes the products they do. I am of course willing to be convinced otherwise, perhaps you have some sources to backup your claim? edit, syntax error
  - Luc 13y ago
    > Formfactor first, everything else second. Hence why apple makes the products they do. I am sorry, but I just don't know where to start. That's not how industrial designers work, it's a caricature.
  - georgespencer 13y ago
    I think this belief that form factor comes first or somehow dictates component use is a common misconception (doesn't make it a dumb one). Apple believes that design is essentially three things: form factor + hardware inside form factor + software. The three have to play together seamlessly for the overall design to be good. We can debate on how effective they are at this, but that is what Apple believes. Steve Jobs talked about the interplay of hardware and software many times. Steve Jobs also frequently discussed compromises. He believed that consumers paid Apple to make decisions about what was useful and what wasn't. So including Flash in iOS would have meant that users could watch all web video (only 25% at launch!), but they looked at the stability and the battery life and made the decision that, no, Flash was not worth it. So Apple believes in tradeoffs. Sometimes these tradeoffs are at the cost of the aesthetic. For example the black plastic on the back of the original iPhone, or the black plastic used on the entire iPhone 3G when they wanted to increase margins and go for market share. This is design. This is a company making tradeoffs. Sometimes the tradeoffs do come to preserve the form factor. I struggle to type on my iPhone, but I was so quick on my BlackBerry that the software lagged behind me. But Apple made the tradeoff. The antennae on the iPhone 4 is a great example of Apple design. It's accomplishing so much. It means there's no need for black plastic on the device, so the aesthetic is improved. It also provides the structural rigidity for the device, which means they can make it feel super sturdy (love Samsung's aesthetic, but if you hold an iPhone 5 and a Galaxy, there's a real difference to the feel). That sort of outcome isn't the product of a guy in a turtle neck with Auto CAD putting lens flares on everything. That's serious design. Jony Ive talked a lot about the process for making the MacBook Air. They wanted to build a fast, ultraportable computer without making it one of those shitty 9" Taiwanese pieces of crap. So they had to work with Intel to build a 60% smaller Merom. Because they didn't want to compromise the internal hardware by shipping a slow processor. They had to develop Unibody so they could strip out internal fixtures that would add weight and reduce the structural integrity of the product. Commitment to the aesthetic. You've cited (it's cited, btw, not sighted) the iMac. Apple wanted to make it thinner and lighter. At the same time they wanted to ship better components inside it. So they had to keep the space inside the same size or make it bigger, or they weren't going to be able to ship the product. So they spent time developing ways to make it thinner and more aesthetically appealing without compromising the hardware components. In this instance I'd argue that deference to the hardware components came first. Much like the MacBook Air, where so much of the work went into developing a tiny logic board so the device could be full powered. tl;dr Apple makes tradeoffs on behalf of consumers. > Hence why apple makes the products they do A quickie on this: hence why is never correct. Just use hence.

rdouble 13y ago

That's pretty much how every Apple product since 1998 was developed.

georgespencer 13y ago
> That's pretty much how every Apple product since 1998 was developed. This feels really lazy and borderline trollish. Over the last decade or so Apple (and others!) have fairly consistently demonstrated a belief that design is multifaceted: the form factor, the software, the components inside the form factor. Increasingly we see these intersecting. The form factor for the iPhone is also the hardware: the screen and the antennae. The unibody manufacturing process for MacBook Pro means that the trendy aluminium form of the product also provides its rigidity and reduces the number of components required to hold it together. More room for batteries, which increases the battery life. Apple and Intel worked together to develop a Merom chip 60% smaller than the standard in order to ship the MacBook Air, which was at the time the thinnest notebook around. Apple doesn't design the form factor and then work out what components need to go inside it. Very often the overall design (form factor + software) is where Apple can innovate, because Apple doesn't typically manufacture components, but they frequently make compromises of design in order to accommodate hardware (and vice versa). IR receivers on the original MacBook Pro (horrible black spots on the bezel), the home button on the iPhone (an absence of hardware buttons on the front of the device would be more pleasing). The black plastic at the base of the original iPhone for Wifi (since engineered out by a combination of component and product design). People will look back on the last two or three decades as a renaissance for design. Apple has contributed, but across the board the importance of design -- and by design I mean the aforementioned intersection of form, software, and hardware -- is visible in products from Samsung, Sony, HTC. Heck even Microsoft has realised that design is more than commissioning Brian Eno to write the Windows boot music. Back to the Mac Pro: I'm sure Apple threw out a dozen designs which had space for more RAM, or which had more CPU sockets, or which had internal expansion. But Apple makes tradeoffs for the overall goal. Sometimes the tradeoffs are such that hardware suffers (I can still type way faster on a BlackBerry than on an iPhone), and some times the aesthetic is diminished (I bet the visible sensors on the iPhone 5 really rankle with Jony Ive). But to suggest that since 1998 Apple has consistently developed the form factor for products first is ludicrous.

andypants 13y ago

> It sounds entirely implausible that a company renowned for its design would decide on the form factor first, and then try to fit stuff in there as well as possible... Design has nothing to do with specs, and something to do with form factor. So yes, it sounds plausible that a company renowned for its design would focus on the design over the specs.