Apple Made Me Buy a Windows HP Workstation

[ForkHandles]

I think you are quite right with regard to not caring about the financial impact. But, IMO, they should care about the marketing impact. When these 'taste makers' leave the mac, they will also stop recommending the platform and being aspirational to other users that follow the trends they set.

When apple was at death's door, these creatives were the core that saved apple, and they helped spread the halo effect. Creative's are hip and are aspirational for marketing. Who would you rather aspire to, an accountant counting beige boxes, or some dude making the next blockbuster movie?

Losing this core group is a mistake IMO, not for the financial reasons, but for their marketing pull in helping the brand be sheik. It's not sheik because of apple's cringe worthy ability to pull some band on stage after an announcement. It was sheik because creatives and techno elite thought having unix on the desktop in a clean way was cool. Once those two groups leave, what do you have left... even the accountants dont want to be the associated with that rind.

I understand your sentiments, but the point still stands. Your comments start off with reference to the past and what worked for them then. Nowadays chic is at the beck and call of the kids, not the creatives. I don't know any teenagers who have a phone other than iPhone. My kid's friends won't accept anything else.

That's their market, that's chic, that's brand loyalty going forward. When Apple finally falls it won't be because they didn't look after the creatives, it will be because the kids found a different way to express their 'chic'. No bearded, dark-room dwelling, middle aged, 20 core loving creative is going to prevent that.

 

[2ilent8cho]

The big issue is the Mac is doing better than ever under Tim Cook sales wise, so they won't think they are remotely doing anything wrong with the Mac lineup. It is just bonkers that the most expensive Mac they sell has the 2013 processors in it.

I was late to the Mac , with OS X Lion being my first ever Mac experience which is where some seem to think OS X started going down hill. After being a hardcore Windows user since the mid 90s i don't want to go back Windows, the more i use OS X more i notice how bad Windows really is. One example , this week i had 2 laptops that the users asked for a clean install of Windows 7, over 9 hours on each one just to do the Windows updates, 9 HOURS!!!! So when you add the OS install and all the extra bits like AV, Flash, Java, Adobe reader , drivers its an 10-12 hour job to reinstall an OS and be back up and running. WTF!?!

 

[8692574]

The big issue is the Mac is doing better than ever under Tim Cook sales wise, so they won't think they are remotely doing anything wrong with the Mac lineup. It is just bonkers that the most expensive Mac they sell has the 2013 processors in it.

I was late to the Mac , with OS X Lion being my first ever Mac experience which is where some seem to think OS X started going down hill. After being a hardcore Windows user since the mid 90s i don't want to go back Windows, the more i use OS X more i notice how bad Windows really is. One example , this week i had 2 laptops that the users asked for a clean install of Windows 7, over 9 hours on each one just to do the Windows updates, 9 HOURS!!!! So when you add the OS install and all the extra bits like AV, Flash, Java, Adobe reader , drivers its an 10-12 hour job to reinstall an OS and be back up and running. WTF!?!

Windows 10 is not that bad.... windows 7 and 8....well that is another story

OS X is far from where it has been, still great but very far from its peak!

 

[oldmacs]

Interesting to who? Apple has gone to where the money is - consumers. It's a business decision. That simple.

And thats where they get boring and predictable - the money is all they care about these days. Apple cares less and less about being exciting and delivering the bas experience and more about those profit margins. They'll head the way of Microsoft in the 2000s if they're not careful - boring and focused on the profits.

Besides Apple should be able to do both - putting a bit of focus into machines for pros and prosumers wouldn't have negative impact on the iOS business.

 

[8692574]

And thats where they get boring and predictable - the money is all they care about these days. Apple cares less and less about being exciting and delivering the bas experience and more about those profit margins. They'll head the way of Microsoft in the 2000s if they're not careful - boring and focused on the profits.

Besides Apple should be able to do both - putting a bit of focus into machines for pros and prosumers wouldn't have negative impact on the iOS business.

Somebody here has been living in Steve distortion field for too long..... I mean Apple has always been about money (as any other company) they rode the hip and cool wave when they could and it made them look like the "good guy" but in reality it has always been about the money (and there is nothing wrong about it).

I love Apple as much as the next guy, but people need to open their eyes, anything they do, they do it for money and that is what i expect from a company.

 

[762999]

after wwdc, we'll find out who's still with apple and who packed up leave.

WWDC is all about software. They don't have to announce new hardware if they don't feel like it. The sad part is that their machine line-up is not that great at the moment and people are starting to care less about software. If you don't feel you have great hardware to run it, what's the point. I do feel the iMac is a wonderful machine but the price is unreal. The mini is not the deal it used to be and the MacPro is not what it should be.

I don't see WWDC as a turning point but with all the time they waste not upgrading their line up, it makes people looks elsewhere and it will bite them. It will take a few years but they will see a difference.
[doublepost=1462191639][/doublepost]

The big issue is the Mac is doing better than ever under Tim Cook sales wise, so they won't think they are remotely doing anything wrong with the Mac lineup. It is just bonkers that the most expensive Mac they sell has the 2013 processors in it.

I was late to the Mac , with OS X Lion being my first ever Mac experience which is where some seem to think OS X started going down hill. After being a hardcore Windows user since the mid 90s i don't want to go back Windows, the more i use OS X more i notice how bad Windows really is. One example , this week i had 2 laptops that the users asked for a clean install of Windows 7, over 9 hours on each one just to do the Windows updates, 9 HOURS!!!! So when you add the OS install and all the extra bits like AV, Flash, Java, Adobe reader , drivers its an 10-12 hour job to reinstall an OS and be back up and running. WTF!?!

Windows 7 was released in 2009, you expect to install that and install no patches?, it's like installing snow leopard and doing all the upgrades one at a time.

You should know that it's possible to have ServicePack and patches slipstreamed into the original build so that you install an already patched release.

If you can't do it fast, than you're probably doing it wrong.

 

[AidenShaw]

Sickkkk. Are you going to use Nvidia Grid virtualisation to let users tap into that remotely?

It's the second of three identical systems - the first one came online in early April. The systems are single job engines - 144 logical cores keeping 12288 CUDA cores busy on one job. 8TB of NVMe local, and 170TB on a dual 10GbE file server.

Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS.

 

[fiatlux]

Oh, i will admit, I'm keeping the old Mac Pro as well. Still perfectly suitable for photo editing and personal use. . Just wish Apple could come to their senses and build a real replacement for the Mac Pro.

If CPU and (amount of) memory were your only bottlenecks, the old Mac Pro wasn't totally obsolete. The dual-proc options are far from ridiculous even when compared to the today's single-CPU Mac Pro, and they take up to 96 GB of RAM (well 128 GB, but only usable in Linux/Win 64 bit).

Of course you may not want to invest much further in a system whose memory, PCIe bus and SATA bandwidths are stuck forever, and I agree HP and others have much more sensible options.

 

[vailr]

It's the second of three identical systems - the first one came online in early April. The systems are single job engines - 144 logical cores keeping 12288 CUDA cores busy on one job. 8TB of NVMe local, and 170TB on a dual 10GbE file server.

Ubuntu 14.04.4 LTS.

Did you consider attempting to install OSX on that hardware, as a Hackintosh?

 

[AidenShaw]

Did you consider attempting to install OSX on that hardware, as a Hackintosh?

No. LOL though - I wonder how far I'd get with a UEFI quad socket 1 TiB system with NVMe disks....

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Btw did anyone see the new all in one workstations from HP with Xeons, upgradable m.2 drives, upgradable SATA, upgradable MXM graphics, professional displays and Thunderbolt 3 expansion?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10267...n-4k-display-intel-xeon-professional-graphics

 

[jameslmoser]

Interesting to who? Apple has gone to where the money is - consumers. It's a business decision. That simple.

We understand that. However based on everyone's feedback here, its a short sited business decision.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

Interesting to who? Apple has gone to where the money is - consumers. It's a business decision. That simple.

Yet consumers waddle to where their tech elite/creatives tell them to go. Lose the leaders, over time, the flock will disperse.
[doublepost=1462204112][/doublepost]

I understand your sentiments, but the point still stands. Your comments start off with reference to the past and what worked for them then. Nowadays chic is at the beck and call of the kids, not the creatives. I don't know any teenagers who have a phone other than iPhone. My kid's friends won't accept anything else.

That's their market, that's chic, that's brand loyalty going forward. When Apple finally falls it won't be because they didn't look after the creatives, it will be because the kids found a different way to express their 'chic'. No bearded, dark-room dwelling, middle aged, 20 core loving creative is going to prevent that.

We disagree. It wasn't kids that pioneered the ipods cool. A bunch of tech/creative nerds did. They may have taught their kids, who them went on preaching the word, but make no mistake. It starts with the techno/creative elite and moves down from there. Get rid of those shepherds, and the kids will waddle off in some other direction for their direction.
[doublepost=1462204226][/doublepost]

The big issue is the Mac is doing better than ever under Tim Cook sales wise, so they won't think they are remotely doing anything wrong with the Mac lineup. It is just bonkers that the most expensive Mac they sell has the 2013 processors in it.

This was true of the mac in the late 80s. After they booted Steve Jobs, John Scully milked the mac platform for the first few years to the point they became #1 PC seller for a while, and then it all went to crap because there was no vision for the next thing. Is this at all sounding familiar?

 

[pat500000]

WWDC is all about software. They don't have to announce new hardware if they don't feel like it. The sad part is that their machine line-up is not that great at the moment and people are starting to care less about software. If you don't feel you have great hardware to run it, what's the point. I do feel the iMac is a wonderful machine but the price is unreal. The mini is not the deal it used to be and the MacPro is not what it should be.

I don't see WWDC as a turning point but with all the time they waste not upgrading their line up, it makes people looks elsewhere and it will bite them. It will take a few years but they will see a difference.
[doublepost=1462191639][/doublepost]

Windows 7 was released in 2009, you expect to install that and install no patches?, it's like installing snow leopard and doing all the upgrades one at a time.

You should know that it's possible to have ServicePack and patches slipstreamed into the original build so that you install an already patched release.

If you can't do it fast, than you're probably doing it wrong.

Even if wdcc was about software, they did a

Btw did anyone see the new all in one workstations from HP with Xeons, upgradable m.2 drives, upgradable SATA, upgradable MXM graphics, professional displays and Thunderbolt 3 expansion?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10267...n-4k-display-intel-xeon-professional-graphics

looks to me that this machine rapes iMac.

 

[ZombiePhysicist]

If CPU and (amount of) memory were your only bottlenecks, the old Mac Pro wasn't totally obsolete. The dual-proc options are far from ridiculous even when compared to the today's single-CPU Mac Pro, and they take up to 96 GB of RAM (well 128 GB, but only usable in Linux/Win 64 bit).

Of course you may not want to invest much further in a system whose memory, PCIe bus and SATA bandwidths are stuck forever, and I agree HP and others have much more sensible options.

I'm running 128GB on my 12core at full 1333MHz. Works fine with the later OSs (I think from 10.10 on).

 

[Hank Carter]

What work do you do with a computer that needs such a specifications? It seems that the FBI are paying quite well for iPhone code breakers at the moment!

We have a similar system at work. Its a dual CPU 36 core with 8 Titan cards (12GB). We use it for rendering in Octane and color timing footage for commercials and feature films.
[doublepost=1462205270][/doublepost]

I understand your sentiments, but the point still stands. Your comments start off with reference to the past and what worked for them then. Nowadays chic is at the beck and call of the kids, not the creatives. I don't know any teenagers who have a phone other than iPhone. My kid's friends won't accept anything else.

That's their market, that's chic, that's brand loyalty going forward. When Apple finally falls it won't be because they didn't look after the creatives, it will be because the kids found a different way to express their 'chic'..

It's a really bad strategy to have the fortunes of an entire company resting on the success of a single product, especially if the appeal of the product is dependent on the whims of fickle teenagers that treat said product as a fashion accessory.

Remember Nokia? They were a one trick pony and what are they doing now? I don't know if you heard, but the strategy you're outlining didn't work all that well for Apple last week. The iPhone sneezes and a trillion dollar company gets the flu, because it makes up 67% of revenue with the iPad adding another 10%..

A healthy company has diverse sources of income in order to compensate for shifts in the marketplace etc

The current problem with Apple is ideological. Tim Cook has repeatedly stated that people don't need anything more than an iPad, which of course is utter nonsense. There is no visionary at Apple who is inventing the next big thing. Cook is an execute and I'm not sure that Ive is all he is cracked up to be without the guidance of Jobs.

No bearded, dark-room dwelling, middle aged, 20 core loving creative is going to prevent that.

That's cute. Almost sounds like it was made up by a pimple faced teenager between glances at snapchat.

 

[sigmadog]

Btw did anyone see the new all in one workstations from HP with Xeons, upgradable m.2 drives, upgradable SATA, upgradable MXM graphics, professional displays and Thunderbolt 3 expansion?

http://www.anandtech.com/show/10267...n-4k-display-intel-xeon-professional-graphics

If I were looking for a new system, I'd be very tempted to go for the new Z1 over the iMac because of service-ability.

 

[AllieNeko]

We understand that. However based on everyone's feedback here, its a short sited business decision.

I don't disagree one bit!

 

[pat500000]

WWDC is all about software. They don't have to announce new hardware if they don't feel like it. The sad part is that their machine line-up is not that great at the moment and people are starting to care less about software. If you don't feel you have great hardware to run it, what's the point. I do feel the iMac is a wonderful machine but the price is unreal. The mini is not the deal it used to be and the MacPro is not what it should be.

I don't see WWDC as a turning point but with all the time they waste not upgrading their line up, it makes people looks elsewhere and it will bite them. It will take a few years but they will see a difference.
[doublepost=1462191639][/doublepost]

Windows 7 was released in 2009, you expect to install that and install no patches?, it's like installing snow leopard and doing all the upgrades one at a time.

You should know that it's possible to have ServicePack and patches slipstreamed into the original build so that you install an already patched release.

If you can't do it fast, than you're probably doing it wrong.

Sure...they don't HAVE to...but they did in the past.

 

[Padaung]

My need's are nothing like those of the OPs, but I too am getting fed up with Apple's hardware. I've owned Power Macs, Macbooks and Mac Minis (as well as iPods and iPhones). I've been happy to pay Apple prices because the hardware has met my needs, the build quality is excellent and I love OS X.

However, the computer hardware on offer no longer justifies the cost. I use my computer for editing raw photos, and some HD video editing (and maybe some 4k in the future). A quad core i7, 16Gb memory and 512Gb SSD Mac Mini would be perfect. Currently a Mac Mini dual core system costs £1359 with no option for a quad core and it is not even the Iris Pro graphics inside.

This is most likely going to be my next editing machine: http://nucblog.net/2016/03/the-skull-canyon-nuc-specs-are-published-nuc6i7kyk/

Windows 10 has caught up with Mac OS X imo. I know people love to hate Windows, and I have done at times over the years (especially Win 8). Windows has improved and Mac OS has stalled in the past 1-2yrs. Essentially however, a computer is a tool and the cost of the tool has to be justified by its performance.

This makes an interesting read: https://www.slrlounge.com/lightroom-mac-vs-pc-speed-test-4k-imac-vs-4k-custom-pc-performance-test/


Creatives using a certain product often make the product cool to own. Creatives deserting Apple is not good news for their brand. Teenagers are fickle and will move on quickly to the next fashion (eg 2016 Nokia and Blackberry phone sales). People using a certain product for work purposes are more faithful and overall make great brand ambassadors.

 

[lympero]

Late reply but according to Tim Cook you no longer need a Mac Pro. Try iPad Pro and you'll be amazed. It's the future.

 

[maxsix]

Actually, there is. It's called File History.

File History has been working very well in my experience, I've been using it quite extensively.

 

[fuchsdh]

We disagree. It wasn't kids that pioneered the ipods cool. A bunch of tech/creative nerds did. They may have taught their kids, who them went on preaching the word, but make no mistake. It starts with the techno/creative elite and moves down from there. Get rid of those shepherds, and the kids will waddle off in some other direction for their direction.
[doublepost=1462204226][/doublepost]

How about someone puts forth actual evidence? Because I see the "the Mac Pro is the halo car, Apple needs creatives" spiel a lot, but I've never actually seen some evidence that it's actually true, and not just creatives trying to justify their importance. I get it, I do creative pro work on Macs, and I would prefer that I was as important to Apple's bottom line as I was ten or fifteen years ago—but I'm not, that's the way of the world.

I get why it appeals to creatives, but it seems like wishful thinking more than anything else, especially since dissatisfaction on this forum is not reflected in overall Mac sales, customer satisfaction, or even Apple pundits, who by and large ignore this. The only guy I regularly hear complain about pro hardware stuff is John Siracusa, and really he'd be happy with the never-coming xMac anyhow.

I went into the lab this morning to power up a new quad CPU / 72 core / 144 thread system with 1024 GiB of RAM and quad Titan X cards (12288 CUDA cores, 48 GiB VRAM). It will be in production by noon tomorrow (Monday).

Good luck competing against that with a 12 core system, with 64 GiB of supported RAM and a couple of Radeons.

(And as soon as tomorrows system comes online, I have another one (identical) to set up.)

These statements are asinine, as Apple was never going to make a machine that would meet that spec anyhow. It's a razor-edge use case of a razor-edge professional category.

 

[SoyCapitanSoyCapitan]

Late reply but according to Tim Cook you no longer need a Mac Pro. Try iPad Pro and you'll be amazed. It's the future.

The iPad Pro is at least twice as fast in every way and has a better screen than most desktop and laptop computers used professionally 10 years ago. So even though the software implementation isn't there yet, there is no reason to believe that thin devices or thin clients can't be used professionally.

I can RDP into my PC and use my apps in real time on the iPad Pro. I was super impressed and this kind of computing is being used in the professional creative industry with virtualised workstations such as Nvidia Grid. They just aren't doing it on a tablet yet. Some people have cleverly converted the iPad Pro into a pseudo-Wacom tablet with Astropad.

We should appreciate the diversity of tools and miniaturisation of power. If you could paint a landscape on a tablet, then convert that into a matte painting layer on your desktop, and then put on a VR headset powered by a phone to sculpt some objects to add to your scene, then you don't need a big block of workstation to do all those things.

The software implementation is important right now. We have stupid amounts of untapped power in many form factors and it's not being used properly.

 

[skwareman]

It is sad but true. HP surpassed Apple by a few miles and then some. I don't think that with their chosen strategy that they will ever serve the "professional" market ever again... But here in Europe the 1.1 - 5.1 range is still very popular, and that makes me think: a comeback with the old model, but with the latest dual xeon cpu's would not be a bad move in my opinion.