Has Apple lost their mind? March 8th Event Disappointment

[Jimmdean]

Another thing I’m not particularly fond of is the unit is obviously designed for the larger CPU. If you’re only interested in the base model then the unit is a little over-engineered.
Considering the M1 Pro (10-core) and M1 Max are identical in CPU-spec if you really don’t need GPU power you might be better off waiting for the inevitable upper-end Mini with M1 Pro than getting the base studio.
Just my 2 cents.

 

[Technerd108]

I am traveling so I didn’t get to watch the event video but just read the Macrumors live blog (thank you for that) and seen the announcement.

Has Apple lost their damn mind???

So the price of entry for an M1 Ultra chip is $3799 for 512GB SSD drive or $3999 for 1TB

FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS AND YOU GIVE ME A 1TB DRIVE!!! This is 2022 and your high end Mac debuts with a 1TB drive. Are you kidding me???

That is not even counting how overpriced it us to start with … HOLY BATBUCKS

Maxed out build is $7999 !!!

and let’s talk about the dispay you will need … not a 32” … not a 30” but a 27” 5K display for $1600 !!!

Want to adjust the height on that display then add $400 for A STAND. A FOUR HUNDRED DOLLAR MONITOR STAND.

And now I am reading 27” iMac is discontinued.

There is not an instrument made that can measure how disappointing today’s event was for me. My feeling are literally hurt. I feel like an idiot for being an Apple guy for the last 17 years.

The rest of that crap they announced in fancy new colors was total crap too.

Anyone else this upset?

Seems reasonable to me considering the power and the M1 Max starts at $1999 which is a great value.

I just wished there was an M2 MB Air but no Apple has not lost their mind.

 

[ikir]

I agree with this sentiment. Thought today's Announcement was bleh. Might be a side effect of 6 months of supply chain issues. And the Mac Studio is obviously a niche product. Love the monitor though, but not at that price point.

It is funny to read such comments. Find a HDR, 5K retina (a 27” not a 40”) with that specs please… dosn’t even exist but you find other display which cost quite the same for much lower res/dpi.

 

[BrianBaughn]

Man…when Apple puts out a consumer-level computer the pro users whine (and that's the usual situation). Then they put out pro-level computer and the consumer-level users whine.

I don't think the balance has ever been better than it is now.

 

[Jimmdean]

I was more surprised than anything else - I expected Apple to prioritize the release of their 27" iMac with Apple silicon, as this is an important, mainstream product for them. As others have noted, the Studio is more of a niche product (especially the Ultra variant).

The question remains - what is taking so long to release the 27" iMac? I assume it has to do with supply chain and more specifically, the 27" mini LED screen that is expected to be part of the new 27" iMac with Apple silicon.

I have to agree here. Like it or not this is not a suitable replacement for the 27” iMac. It’s just not the same thing. I’m sure they know that.

 

[leman]

I have to agree here. Like it or not this is not a suitable replacement for the 27” iMac. It’s just not the same thing. I’m sure they know that.

The iMac will likely come in autumn with an M2 Pro/Max. Or maybe it’s gone for good. Who knows.

 

[Luposian]

I was kinda excited about the M1 Ultra... until I found out, it's JUST a "dual-core" (in a rough sense of the term) M1 Max! It's just two M1 Max fused together... not exactly the ground-breaking technological leap they're painting it to be. Fuse 4 of them together... what are you going to call that? The M1 Ultra II?

I want an all-new processor... and they didn't deliver that... they just "doubled up" their previous offering. Yeah, you can't get such improvements anywhere/any way else, so... "Apple will do, what Apple will do." Good for you, if you can afford to spend Apple's kinda bucks on their latest offering, but not for me, thank you. I will gladly keep my M1 Mac Mini and gush over Blender's Metal improvements in Blender 3.1 and the kinda differences THAT brings. Knocked down rendering "Classroom" from a little over 11 min. (CPU only) down to under 5 min. (CPU+GPU). I love squeezing performance out of "older technoogy", more than just the latest and greatest thing being promoted.

 

[robd003]

Isn't the whole point of the Studio is that you'll be using external drives basically all of the time? I'd think that when Apple releases the Mac Pro it'll have tens of terabytes of storage on the high-end.

 

[progx]

The main point is that Mac Pro's pricing put it squarely in the serious professional space (or if money is literally no concern for you), where as the Mac studio, you could argue is in the consumer/prosumer space.

Easily prosumer on the entry side, but not consumer at all. What consumer is going to need an M1 Max SOC?

There will still be a higher end Mac mini to replace the lone Intel one at some point, but clearly they were talking to consumers with the iPhone SE. The Studio is definitely not a product for people who aren't doing some form of high end video, music or anything on the high end of productivity. For my use cases, the regular mini, iMac or entry MacBooks would fit nicely.

Since this beast just came out... I wonder what the Pro replacement is going to be... 😳

 

[januarydrive7]

I was kinda excited about the M1 Ultra... until I found out, it's JUST a "dual-core" (in a rough sense of the term) M1 Max! It's just two M1 Max fused together... not exactly the ground-breaking technological leap they're painting it to be. Fuse 4 of them together... what are you going to call that? The M1 Ultra II?

I want an all-new processor... and they didn't deliver that... they just "doubled up" their previous offering. Yeah, you can't get such improvements anywhere/any way else, so... "Apple will do, what Apple will do." Good for you, if you can afford to spend Apple's kinda bucks on their latest offering, but not for me, thank you. I will gladly keep my M1 Mac Mini and gush over Blender's Metal improvements in Blender 3.1 and the kinda differences THAT brings. Knocked down rendering "Classroom" from a little over 11 min. (CPU only) down to under 5 min. (CPU+GPU). I love squeezing performance out of "older technoogy", more than just the latest and greatest thing being promoted.

The fabric linking the two M1 Max together is ground-breaking in itself. Can't wait to see more details on it

 

[branchus]

I was more surprised than anything else - I expected Apple to prioritize the release of their 27" iMac with Apple silicon, as this is an important, mainstream product for them. As others have noted, the Studio is more of a niche product (especially the Ultra variant).

I think Mac Studio serves as a low end Mac Pro. Mac Pro may be use two or four M1 Ultra.

The disappointment for me is I didn't see M2. It is about 18 months since they released M1

 

[Jimmdean]

Isn't the whole point of the Studio is that you'll be using external drives basically all of the time? I'd think that when Apple releases the Mac Pro it'll have tens of terabytes of storage on the high-end.

They are designed for multi-drive raid systems that can really push huge amounts of data. real pro-level stuff that can utilize the speed.

I just want a few TB without paying the Apple tax. I hate having to use portable external drives for main data and a NAS is just extra equipment.

 

[darkpaw]

A couple of posters have said the Studio Display doesn't come with a stand; it *does*, you just pick which one you want.

The height-adjustable one (that looks like it's the original one from the Pro Display XDR) is £400 more expensive.

Also, as recently noted, you cannot interchange the stands - if you buy the Studio Display with the Tilt-adjustable stand that's what you're stuck with; you can't get the Tilt- and height-adjustable stand later on and connect it. Best options seems to be the VESA mount and you whop it onto whatever monitor stand/arm you want.

 

[TracerAnalog]

I am traveling so I didn’t get to watch the event video but just read the Macrumors live blog (thank you for that) and seen the announcement.

Has Apple lost their damn mind???

So the price of entry for an M1 Ultra chip is $3799 for 512GB SSD drive or $3999 for 1TB

FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS AND YOU GIVE ME A 1TB DRIVE!!! This is 2022 and your high end Mac debuts with a 1TB drive. Are you kidding me???

That is not even counting how overpriced it us to start with … HOLY BATBUCKS

Maxed out build is $7999 !!!

and let’s talk about the dispay you will need … not a 32” … not a 30” but a 27” 5K display for $1600 !!!

Want to adjust the height on that display then add $400 for A STAND. A FOUR HUNDRED DOLLAR MONITOR STAND.

And now I am reading 27” iMac is discontinued.

There is not an instrument made that can measure how disappointing today’s event was for me. My feeling are literally hurt. I feel like an idiot for being an Apple guy for the last 17 years.

The rest of that crap they announced in fancy new colors was total crap too.

Anyone else this upset?

No. They introduced an insanely fast Mac. Kudos for Apple for continuing to challenge the Intel hegemony. And yes, high end computing comes at a premium price… ’Apple tax’ and all that. Have you tried buying a 16Gb Nvidia RTX 3090 recently??

 

[Zdigital2015]

I am traveling so I didn’t get to watch the event video but just read the Macrumors live blog (thank you for that) and seen the announcement.

Has Apple lost their damn mind???

So the price of entry for an M1 Ultra chip is $3799 for 512GB SSD drive or $3999 for 1TB

FOUR THOUSAND DOLLARS AND YOU GIVE ME A 1TB DRIVE!!! This is 2022 and your high end Mac debuts with a 1TB drive. Are you kidding me???

That is not even counting how overpriced it us to start with … HOLY BATBUCKS

Maxed out build is $7999 !!!

and let’s talk about the dispay you will need … not a 32” … not a 30” but a 27” 5K display for $1600 !!!

Want to adjust the height on that display then add $400 for A STAND. A FOUR HUNDRED DOLLAR MONITOR STAND.

And now I am reading 27” iMac is discontinued.

There is not an instrument made that can measure how disappointing today’s event was for me. My feeling are literally hurt. I feel like an idiot for being an Apple guy for the last 17 years.

The rest of that crap they announced in fancy new colors was total crap too.

Anyone else this upset?

Nope, just you. Being able to out perform the 28-core Xeon MacPro for a quarter of the cost is something anyone with those particular needs should definitely not pass up or overlook.

Your feelings are hurt? Really? Perhaps you’ve invested too much emotionally in someone else’s business and should invest more in your own.

 

[TracerAnalog]

I was more surprised than anything else - I expected Apple to prioritize the release of their 27" iMac with Apple silicon, as this is an important, mainstream product for them. As others have noted, the Studio is more of a niche product (especially the Ultra variant).

The question remains - what is taking so long to release the 27" iMac? I assume it has to do with supply chain and more specifically, the 27" mini LED screen that is expected to be part of the new 27" iMac with Apple silicon.

Methinks the 27” iMac is dead.

 

[mr_roboto]

I was kinda excited about the M1 Ultra... until I found out, it's JUST a "dual-core" (in a rough sense of the term) M1 Max! It's just two M1 Max fused together... not exactly the ground-breaking technological leap they're painting it to be. Fuse 4 of them together... what are you going to call that? The M1 Ultra II?

I want an all-new processor... and they didn't deliver that... they just "doubled up" their previous offering.

What a bizarre complaint. Yes, they're hyping M1 Ultra as a leap, hype is what these events are always about, but you shouldn't let that blind you to interesting substance.

And there is something here: they're promising that the die-to-die interconnect they designed into M1 Max to make M1 Ultra out of two M1 Max die is so high performance that, so far as software is concerned, it behaves more or less like one monolithic device. If true, that's actually a big deal. Not something exclusive to Apple, but it might be the first time anyone's shipped something like it in a mass market product. We'll see how true the hype is soon enough.

 

[FHoff]

Anyone else this upset?

Not in the slightest.

 

[JMacHack]

Imagine getting the mythical xMac that people have wanted for all these years, at an entry price point lower than Apple towers historically since 20 years ago, that has chart topping performance in a quiet chassis, and manages to compete with the best silicon from the entire pc market…

And bitching about it.

 

[januarydrive7]

Imagine getting the mythical xMac that people have wanted for all these years, at an entry price point lower than Apple towers historically since 20 years ago, that has chart topping performance in a quiet chassis, and manages to compete with the best silicon from the entire pc market…

And bitching about it.

I think the only point of contention re: Studio vs. xMac is that most wanted the xMac to be user-upgradable.

Your sentiment is spot-on, though!

 

[JMacHack]

I think the only point of contention re: Studio vs. xMac is that most wanted the xMac to be user-upgradable.

Your sentiment is spot-on, though!

I’m willing to concede that.

 

[PsykX]

The M1 Ultra Mac Studio is $4K.
Basically $2.4K less expensive than the 2022 price of an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, which would be equivalent to the M1 Ultra in terms of performance.

But you get a whole computer instead ?
Sounds like a very compelling deal to me. Just don't take the extras.

I won't buy it because it performs way, way, WAY better than my needs require, but I've gotta say, I've never been that appealed by a Mac in over 15 years. That was one of the most exciting keynotes in a very long time, especially because I thought they would release low-end products only.

 

[PsykX]

And now I am reading 27” iMac is discontinued.

This one was also a bummer to me.
But I'll believe the rumours that they are working on a larger display iMac, due next year.

 

[leman]

I was kinda excited about the M1 Ultra... until I found out, it's JUST a "dual-core" (in a rough sense of the term) M1 Max! It's just two M1 Max fused together... not exactly the ground-breaking technological leap they're painting it to be. Fuse 4 of them together... what are you going to call that? The M1 Ultra II?

Quite in contrary, this is an impressive technological leap. Multi-chip technology is the future and Apple has demonstrated they can execute it better than anyone else up to date. AMDs chiplet tech offers a fraction of inter-die bandwidth at much higher power cost.

 

[leman]

The M1 Ultra Mac Studio is $4K.
Basically $2.4K less expensive than the 2022 price of an AMD Ryzen Threadripper 3990X, which would be equivalent to the M1 Ultra in terms of performance.

But you get a whole computer instead ?
Sounds like a very compelling deal to me. Just don't take the extras.

I won't buy it because it performs way, way, WAY better than my needs require, but I've gotta say, I've never been that appealed by a Mac in over 15 years. That was one of the most exciting keynote in a long time, especially because I thought they would release low-end products only.

Im fairly sure that M1 Ultra will be faster than a 32-core threadripper in almost any practically relevant task.

Except chess of course