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How Much Longer Can They Do This?

T

tony3d

macrumors 6502
Original poster
Apr 6, 2006
377
2
How much longer can Apple pawn off these old computers at premium prices? I mean come on, the hardware vendors have to stop making parts here soon no? I don't know how Tim Cook sleeps at night selling this old tech at top buck! Very well i guess. They won't get a dime from me till they earn it.
 
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as long as people keep buying them. A lot of people don 't even know what they're buying, so they don't know if it's new or not
 
"It just works"

Most consumers don't really know or care about having the absolute latest as long as it does what it is supposed to, a dual core i7 is still WAY more than your average user needs.
 
People are still buying them, I 100% guarantee that.

Some people *need* new hardware to do the paid work they get.

If the machine is 10% slower than the new Mac Pro but 100% faster than the machine they are replacing they have done X weeks/months of added work before the new MP has come out, i.e. been more productive and earnt more.

Cost != productivity.

:)
 
Regardless, I'm sure sales have slowed. (part of the catch 22 I suppose) Most professionals are very aware of the possibility of a new model on the near horizon, so unless they absolutely have to buy now . . . . .
 
AMD have just announced that the Radeon HD 2000, HD 3000, & HD 4000 Video Cards are being moved to Legacy Status in May.

http://www.anandtech.com/show/5775/amd-hd-2000-hd-3000-hd-4000-gpus-being-moved-to-legacy-status-in-may

The Radeon HD 5000 used in the current Mac Pros should be around for a while yet.

The pricing is another matter, you can get nice big discounts on the old models from the other workstation vendors. If Apple are going to stretch out the lifecycle, which seems inevitable when the rate of progress has clearly slowed, they need to rethink their pricing.

For what it is worth I wouldn't buy one now under any circumstance, all my software runs on OS X or Windows 7, and whilst I prefer Macs I would not pay such a huge premium for a 22 month old and counting workstation. Windows 7 workstations work can work very well. A Mac Mini Server can usefully be added as a render node for some setups at quite a reasonable price even with a 16GB upgrade.

Unfortunately unless you have a buyers strike Apple won't lower their prices!
 
For most people it's just a tool they use to get work done (and by work I mean school work, career work, emailing and surfing the web).

For the vast majority of people the HW is already overpowered for what they need. A computer now spends the vast majority of it's time waiting for someone to tell it to do something. So... I'd say Apple can sell this HW for a very long time.

For the minority of people who actually push a computer occasionally to it's limits - yeah - Apple may not be selling the fastest computers around. But of course there is only one "fastest" and everyone else is selling "dated" and "old" HW. The "fastest" also tends to change from month to month and even week to week.

You want the biggest honking computer? Whatever you buy/build today will be surpassed in a couple of months or a couple of days, so deal with it.

I'm sure Tim Cook sleeps fine. He sells solutions to problems, and Apple seems to have lots of solutions up its sleeves to sell us.

All of this is IMHO, of course.....
 
snberk103 said:
For most people it's just a tool they use to get work done (and by work I mean school work, career work, emailing and surfing the web).

For the vast majority of people the HW is already overpowered for what they need. A computer now spends the vast majority of it's time waiting for someone to tell it to do something. So... I'd say Apple can sell this HW for a very long time.

For the minority of people who actually push a computer occasionally to it's limits - yeah - Apple may not be selling the fastest computers around. But of course there is only one "fastest" and everyone else is selling "dated" and "old" HW. The "fastest" also tends to change from month to month and even week to week.

You want the biggest honking computer? Whatever you buy/build today will be surpassed in a couple of months or a couple of days, so deal with it.

I'm sure Tim Cook sleeps fine. He sells solutions to problems, and Apple seems to have lots of solutions up its sleeves to sell us.

All of this is IMHO, of course.....
Click to expand...

Man this is so full of falsehoods, I hope no one takes it seriously.

The "fastest" computer does not change week to week whatsoever. It basically changes once a year when new CPUs are released. Building a machine now WILL NOT be surpassed in months, weeks, or days.

And plenty of people are out there pushing computers. They don't spend "most of their time sitting around", waiting for orders. The entry level Mac Pro is a sad machine for the price, period. Get out in the real world with some devs, or video editors and try and tell them this.

I wish people would quit making excuses for Apple. They aren't doing a great job with their computers, there is no need to defend them.
 
Eventually they're announce something.

Stop making threads about it. Find a hobby. Every time the Mac Pro is up for revision there is a lag time. We do this every single time.
 
Its more important that they get the new imac and macbook pros out before the mac pro in terms of mac revenue for the june quarter.

No way are they going to be showing off a new mac pro come WWDC, will be way out of place in the new post PC Apple.

I imagine it will come out october time, once the dust has settled on the more important machines.
 
Demography Matters

Macs address to generic population requirements. So an average Joe will be fine with a Mac he buys today for 3-4 years.

But in case of a video editor or a numerical analyst the ball game is different and they have the tools and PCs that serve the purpose. But the group has some crowd who prefer the Mac world to PC for these tasks.

End of day it is a wholesome experience like support, software, ease of use etc. that matter.

But if you think Mac is not for you, just don't buy it duh!.
 
TennisandMusic said:
Man this is so full of falsehoods, .... Get out in the real world with some devs, or video editors and try and tell them this.

I wish people would quit making excuses for Apple. They aren't doing a great job with their computers, there is no need to defend them.
Click to expand...

I am out in the real world. And I actually kinda know about the computer industry since I used to work supporting users. And I still unofficially support lots of people in my community. I'm even one of those people who pushes their computer, though I know a few people who really push theirs.

I am not saying that there aren't people who push their computers, and push the hard. And there may be "lots" of people who do ... but Apple is selling millions of systems a quarter, and the vast "majority" of them are not sound editors, videographers, photographers, scientists. They are ordinary people who do mostly text based work (reading and writing) watch videos, listen to music, and sort their photos. Apple caters to this demographic. And this demographic do not push their systems hard. Observe that Apple has been spending more time making their portable systems more portable ... Better batteries and smaller form factors is what "majority" of Apple users want. Deal with it. They pay Apple's rent.

So I exaggerated a little bit about how computers get faster week to week. The fact remains that of all the PC makers out there, someone is introducing a new model every month that is a bit "better". Faster CPUs are only part of it. Bigger HDDs, more RAM, faster I/O ports, faster memory busses, faster controllers, faster WiFi standards, faster Bluetooth standards, etc etc. Over the course of a year lots of things are incrementally improved. Except for Apple of course... no arguments there.

For those of us, the minority, who need something more than the standard consumer grade computer... yeah. Apple's timelines sometimes suck. No arguments there either. But the initial rant was not directed at this specific case - it was more general. And in the general sense (i.e. for the majority of people Apple's year old computers are still doing what the majority of people need and then some.

If you aren't in the majority, then that is a different discussion - Sorry. I might even agree with you.
 
TennisandMusic said:
Get out in the real world with some devs, or video editors and try and tell them this.
Click to expand...

Video editors? I do that for a living and have for many years. Video editing has zero to do with processing power. I can edit just as quickly on my 6-core at work as I could on a macmini. I know, because I have done it. If you are talking about transcoding (usually things an asst editor deals with) or heavy motion graphics I get it but for editing, anything over a 4-core is overkill.

Fact of the matter is MOST software even pros use don't come close to flexing 12-core machines. Hardware is so far ahead of software it is laughable. People who upgrade every time the new MacPros come out to the biggest and baddest to do measly 2d animation and NLEing are laughable and flushing their money down the drain.

And lets not get into people under-powering their machines with ram. A friend was wondering why his 8-core was getting choked on rendering in AE while my 4-core hummed the same project in half the time and was still usable during render. He had 6GB RAM and I had 16GB. He was choking each core with virtually no RAM while mine was sailing. To make a 12-core even close to worth it you would need at least 64GB of ram at the bare minimum. Anything less you would be better off with less cores and more ram.

And it would be faster and cheaper to create a multi-smaller machine render farm than keep buying the biggest machines Apple could produce at a premium.

And THAT is how a video editor thinks.
 
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