Mac Pro 2023 = Another Mac Pro 2013 crisis and failure.

[bobcomer]

It's not about the TPMs!

It actually is. It's part of the security system of the PC and WIndows 11 has a lot of enhancements to security and they need the TPM to function correctly.

They have a very simple rule that was added very late in the beta cycle and not clearly explained in the initial set of press materials: if your processor is older than an 8th-gen Intel, it is unsupported. If you override the CPU check, it will run just fine, even the fancy security features if you have a TPM, but it is unsupported, so they reserve the right to brick you in any monthly patch.

They dont brick you. Unsupported, yes, but that just means they wont help you if it doesn't work. I've never seen Microsoft brick older machines intentionally, period, it isn't in their chemistry. Remember backwards compatibility is king and they want you to run their OS. Even Apple doesn't do that and if anyone did, they would.

Do you want me to post a screenshot of their "PC Health Check" utility on my i7-7700, showing the TPM on, all the other criteria met, and a big fail next to CPU?

You don't need to. 8th gen is a requirement, they probably set that for a reason too. But they wont brick your machine and install Windows 11 anyway. It might not run it well, I wouldn't know, never tried, older machines use Windows 10 and they run all the same user software and that's what I concern myself with.

 

[Longplays]

Something to ponder about your push for paid extended security update support.

Will the people who cannot even buy a new computer to replace a decade+ one even see this as a value to them?

You're proposing CAD$129... is this an annual fee?

Do they even qualify for a Mastercard/Visa?

Sure, and please explain to me how you convince someone who has a 2012 non-retina MacBook Air that they might want to use 1-2 hours/week that they should buy a new M2 MacBook Air, a new copy of MS Office because their 2011 is 32-bit, etc. I have been trying, and I can't come up with a persuasive pitch. At the same time, there aren't exactly many versions of macOS left that still run 32-bit software and current web browsers (technically, High Sierra and Mojave, though I think the browsers are dropping High Sierra soon).

They're not a customer. Market forces will make them buy a new computer or not.

If the need's that great they will buy one or just walk to an Internet cafe and rent a seat for 1-2hrs/week.

The fact that Apple and Microsoft do not care about someone whose needs are low enough that they don't feel like opening their wallets in a decade is... obvious enough.

Apple choosing to cater to only the top 20% of the market has been their strategy since Steve's time. It's indicative of their pricing strategy of all their hardware. They're all priced for the top 20%

Any cheaper and it becomes Microsoft/Google/FOSS.

But you seem to be disagreeing that there is a problem here.

It obviously not Apple or Microsoft's problem. They have to find ways to hit their business targets, payroll commitments and shareholders equity.

In most countries, if you have, say, a 1995-era car that you drive 500km/year, that's fine. Parts (or at least any of the major wear items) should still be available, insurers will insure them, governments won't hold them to emissions/safety rules they weren't designed for, etc. It won't have the latest technology/safety/etc, but if all you're doing is 500km of driving and you don't think those things justify buying a new car, so be it.

You are basically saying that, for anybody whose computing needs are the equivalent of the 500km/year car, too bad so sad. Open your wallet every 5-8 years to replace hardware that meets your needs just fine, take your chances on the malware on the unsupported OS, or just go 100% smartphone. Does that not seem unfair and hard to explain to someone not versed in the importance of vendor security patches?

If their circumstances does not allow you to buy a new computer every decade then I think they have a bigger problem than malware.

Even if they get malware will the hacker-scammer get any money from them?

It is also likely anyone with difficulties of this degree wouldnt have money for the annual registration of a mid 90s car 3 decades later, gas money or even basic maintenance.

What you are describing is a homeless person who probably is living in a car using a laptop they found from someone causing e-waste at their neighborhood curb.

To Apple/Microsoft they're not a customer.

 

[VivienM]

They dont brick you. Unsupported, yes, but that just means they wont help you if it doesn't work. I've never seen Microsoft brick older machines intentionally, period, it isn't in their chemistry. Remember backwards compatibility is king and they want you to run their OS. Even Apple doesn't do that and if anyone did, they would.

You don't need to. 8th gen is a requirement, they probably set that for a reason too. But they wont brick your machine and install Windows 11 anyway. It might not run it well, I wouldn't know, never tried, older machines use Windows 10 and they run all the same user software and that's what I concern myself with.

I'm sorry if I sound a little defensive, but please try to appreciate that I have done a lot of research into this given that I consider it the second big insult Microsoft directed my way (and the reason I am typing this on an iMac! it seems like every time Microsoft insults me, I buy an expensive Mac or two) and it feels like you are just quoting what most media types have reported.

1) I am pretty sure Microsoft has made a statement saying that "unsupported" means they don't guarantee that any patches won't brick you. Not just that they wouldn't help you if you called for support. You are welcome to take that with a grain of salt, I won't disagree with you there.

2) There are actually instances of Microsoft bricking older machines. Go and hang around the vintage PC community. They removed AGP support in one of the Windows 10 feature updates - people got the feature update, their GPU was broken, and when they poked around, oh, it turns out AGP isn't supported anymore. One of the patches for Windows 7 required a CPU with SSE2 support, which was not required for Windows 7 prior to that date and the knowledge base article basically says "upgrade to a CPU with SSE2". There was also something that happened with some Intel Atom processors early in the Windows 10 lifecycle. I think there may also be something about early AMD64 CPUs - I think some versions of Windows require an instruction that the early AMD AMD64 CPUs don't support. Most of those changes affected very old machines, so they didn't get a ton of media coverage. But many people would consider an i7-7700 in 2025 a "very old machine" so that's not that comforting.

3) The "true" requirements for Windows 11 were announced and then pulled shortly after. It was the list that included the TPM 1.2, etc. Then the marketing department entered the picture and had them add the 8th gen CPU requirement, orphaning machines that were running the insider betas quite well. I am not even sure the 8th gen CPU requirement is there if you try to boot from the installer (as opposed to doing an in-place upgrade), that's how last minute it was added.

I've run Windows 11 on plenty of unsupported machines, including C2Qs with no UEFI, no secure boot, no TPM, etc, i.e. nothing on the official list other than enough RAM and storage and an x64 processor. Fundamentally, Windows 11 is just another release of NT 6.x, they haven't removed any of the legacy code (other than 32-bit support), as soon as you turn off the checks for all the requirements in the installer, it works just like every other 64-bit NT 6.x. If you turn off the requirement for a mandatory Microsoft account, even that annoying "innovation" goes away. Same drivers, same hardware support, same everything, similar performance even. You may not get the new security features that benefit from TPMs, but guess what - unlike what the media coverage suggests, those are not actually required. It doesn't even complain about the lack of a TPM except in the installer!

And I might add that when you run Windows 11 on a C2Q, you understand the business realities Microsoft (and Dell/Lenovo/etc) is facing. It works fine. You can run current versions of web browsers, MS Office, etc just fine. There are many, many people whose computing needs would be perfectly passably served by a C2Q with 8 gigs of RAM and Windows 11, maybe with an SSD thrown in. And these are machines that last paid for a Windows licence in 2009! Run Windows 11 on an off-lease Haswell desktop from 2014 that you could buy from Dell for $200 3 years ago, and you've actually got a screaming-fast system for normal tasks, and again, that machine hasn't paid for a Windows licence since 2014 (unless it paid for some certified refurbisher program). It's a real business problem - these C2Qs, Sandy Bridges, Ivy Bridges and Haswells are still outstanding MS Office/web browsing/etc machines! And those off-lease business desktops will basically run forever - parts are plentiful and largely standard, no batteries to go bad, etc.

But the question remains - can one be confident that no patch tomorrow will add a dependency on 8th-gen Intel CPUs or newer that doesn't actually exist in today's code base when I believe Microsoft has explicitly left the door open to that? And if one cannot be confident of that, then the only unsupported systems one can run Windows 11 on are test systems that you don't care if they break tomorrow. You can't run it on any work machines, any personal machines you wouldn't enjoy having break on you, or your elderly aunt's machine.

 

[sunny5]

Why do they need higher-end chips than the Ultra? It's... not clear... that there is a business case for it.

And as for a Mac Pro staying x86, they don't want to support two architectures for the low volumes of the Mac Pro. Developers probably don't really want to support two architectures either - do you think Adobe really wants to support two architectures if 95% of the installed base is Apple Silicon?

Spend some time looking at benchmarks. Pick a year in the 2000s and compare processor benchmarks for, say, the MacBook Pros of that year vs the iMac vs the Mac Pro of that year. Then repeat the exercise for the mid-2010s and for the Apple Silicon era.

What you'll see is that the raw performance difference between high-end workstation hardware and other things is shrinking, and that today's Apple Silicon chips will beat most high-end workstation chips of a few years ago. A plain vanilla M2 beats the 12-core 2019 Mac Pro at Geekbench, for example.

The other piece you might want to add in there is the cloud - I'm sure there are at least SOME heavy workloads that can be done just fine in a bunch of AWS instances that are controlled from a MacBook Pro.

The market for people who need better performance than the 2019 Mac Pro, more expandability than a Mac studio, can't work on a remote server, etc is... not that huge. Sure, there are some people whose needs would be better met with a big NVIDIA GPU rather than Apple's many-core-mobile-based GPU architecture. There are some people whose needs would be better met by some quirk or other of the Xeon platform, e.g. the ability to have one with gazillions of cores. There are some people whose needs require more than 192GB of RAM (although it's worth noting, Apple did not offer anything with 192GB of RAM or more until 2019). Etc. And Apple is not going to redesign most of their Apple Silicon stack in order to accommodate those niches.

Sad reality is, Apple seems to have decided that scaled-up smartphone chips could do a better job for 99% of their customer base and too bad so sad for the remaining 1%.

lol, what you are saying is ditching ALL pro markets that Apple created for several decades even for video and music industry. Clearly, you have no idea what you are talking about.

 

[JouniS]

There are some people whose needs require more than 192GB of RAM (although it's worth noting, Apple did not offer anything with 192GB of RAM or more until 2019).

The iMac Pro had a 256 GB option, and you could upgrade it to 512 GB with third-party memory modules.

 

[VivienM]

Something to ponder about your push for paid extended security update support.

Will the people who cannot even buy a new computer to replace a decade+ one even see this as a value to them?

You're proposing CAD$129... is this an annual fee?

Do they even qualify for a Mastercard/Visa?

They're not a customer. Market forces will make them buy a new computer or not.

If the need's that great they will buy one or just walk to an Internet cafe and rent a seat for 1-2hrs/week.

Apple choosing to cater to only the top 20% of the market has been their strategy since Steve's time. It's indicative of their pricing strategy of all their hardware. They're all priced for the top 20%

Any cheaper and it becomes Microsoft/Google/FOSS.

It obviously not Apple or Microsoft's problem. They have to find ways to hit their business targets, payroll commitments and shareholders equity.

If their circumstances does not allow you to buy a new computer every decade then I think they have a bigger problem than malware.

Even if they get malware will the hacker-scammer get any money from them?

It is also likely anyone with difficulties of this degree wouldnt have money for the annual registration of a mid 90s car 3 decades later, gas money or even basic maintenance.

What you are describing is a homeless person who probably is living in a car using a laptop they found from someone causing e-waste at their neighborhood curb.

To Apple/Microsoft they're not a customer.

1) CAD$129 is the number I picked because that's what Microsoft charged for a home edition Windows upgrade. Win95, 98, XP Home, etc were all that price. 7 Home might have been a little higher, maybe 139, but they had a 50% off launch promo.

I suspect Apple's price for a Panther or Tiger upgrade was similar?

I haven't exactly done a detailed business case on this, but it seemed like a reasonable starting point.

2) The people I am talking about have money. They could go and buy a new MacBook Air tomorrow. They might also be buying iPhones regularly so they are definitely an active Apple customer front.

But please explain to me, again, how you explain to someone who uses their laptop at most an hour or two per week or month that they should spend $1800 on a MacBook Air that they will use a few hours per month? When they do most of their computing on a smartphone or a work laptop?

It's the same thing with the old ladies with their impeccably-maintained mid-1990s car. They could afford a new car. Why would they spend $30K on a new car if their old one does what they need it to do for the 500km/year that they drive?

See, you and I are both old techies. We still use our Macs or Windows machines regularly, do a reasonable amount of our computing on a laptop/desktop (I presume you typed your posts on a Mac, not a smartphone/tablet?), etc. We're used to computers being good for X years and having to buy new ones afterwards. If anything, over the past decade and a half, X has stretched into X+2 or X+3 years, so unless Apple or Microsoft really screw us with an unexpectedly short lifecycle (which is why I'm upset about my then-4-year-old-desktop being told it's not good enough for Windows 11 especially when Intel didn't really have any measurably better processors than mine at the time of the announcement), that's fine.

As much as I've used my mid-2014 MacBook Pro as an example, Apple gave me a good price trading it in, I had a good six-year-and-one-battery-replacement run with it (which is the longest I've had any 'primary' laptop for...), off it went, I got an M1 Max MacBook Pro at launch for the highest amount I've ever spent on a computer (when in reality, a 24GB M2 15" MBA would have been a better fit for my wallet, but obviously that didn't exist in fall 2021), and life goes on. I've talked about my Sandy Bridge Windows laptops - fundamentally, the mid-2014 MacBook Pro was acquired when the warranty was ending on a Dell laptop that had had two motherboard replacements and four power adapters, so the fact that that laptop is still around and kicking two years after the MBP was traded in is a nice bonus, but if it didn't power on tomorrow, I wouldn't be heartbroken - I'd scavenge a few parts and drive it to WB's e-waste pile and life would go on.

But as I've gotten older and as smartphones have gotten more prevalent and because I went to school and work mostly in a non-IT field, what I've realized is that there are many people who used to spend hours in front of their laptops when they were in school a decade or two ago who now do most of their 'computing' on smartphones or work laptops. And occasionally, they might have something to do that requires a full-fledged computer, e.g. if you are preparing a job application, you probably don't want to do it on a smartphone, and you probably shouldn't use your existing employer's computer. But no one is going to spend $1800 every 5-7 years on a MacBook Air that they might use to write three job applications in those 5 years. Or at least, I don't know how to convince them to. Doesn't matter that they have the money - there are just a lot more appealing things to them than a $1800 computer that they will barely use and that may once again be "too old" next time they need to seriously use it.

The issue is this: in the connected age, it is reckless to run a computer on the Internet that does not get OS vendor security patches. OS vendors are, as you've said, not particularly interested in providing long-term support, especially when both major OS vendors now only get their money when you buy new hardware. And there are many, many people with limited computing needs who are unwilling to spend the kind of money they would have happily spent when they were in school on a laptop they would use infrequently, especially when that computer performs just fine for the limited things they do with it except for the OS security patches. You can do your job application just fine on a mid-2012 MBP with the original version of macOS... until you need a working web browser to access your Gmail account, look at the employer's web site, fill out an application, etc. It's that damn web that's the problem - you need a current-enough web browser and you need security patches, otherwise you shouldn't be web browsing. You could do the job application just fine on a G4 if it wasn't for that damn web.

It's also the fact that these machines are healthy. It's easy to convince someone that they need to replace a broken computer/car/appliance/etc. But telling them that a computer that is healthy, that does everything they need it to do, etc needs to be replaced because of security patches... is a tough sell regardless of whether they have the money. I wonder how easy it would have been to convince my retired mom to move on from her late-2013 15" retina MacBook Pro, but fate intervened, the SSD died, the official Apple repair price made no sense, so she quite happily got a 2020 Intel 13". But I think getting her away from the Intel to an Apple Silicon MBP when macOS drops Intel will be more of a challenge - as amazing as the AS Macs are, they don't do anything more that she needs. I'm trying to convince my parents that they should plan to replace their iPhone XRs this fall, and it's also a tough sell - for what they do, the XRs (with monthly AppleCare) are good enough and they don't see why they should spend $2200 on new phones.

(Please don't tell me that Apple doesn't view my parents as customers - since the launch of the iPhone, they have bought 7 iPhones, 2 MacBook Pros and not the base model ones either, a Mac mini with keyboard/mouse, one set of AirPods, and one or two el-cheapo iPads. Most/all with AppleCare. That doesn't make them Apple's best customer, sure, and they will never rush to the Apple Store on launch day to buy something that they don't really urgently need, but I think they are still a customer, and they certainly feel like they give Apple "lots" of money. Interestingly Apple has launched two products perfect for my parents in the last year... let's hope they are still around when my parents are in the market)

That's what bothers me about this - I think I could convince someone with a mid-2012 MacBook Pro to spend a few dollars every few years to have it stay current and usable, but they just won't spend $1800 on a new machine given how infrequently they use the old one. And if something changes and they suddenly need a laptop frequently, then they will buy one (which is one of the factors that drove covid-era laptop purchases)... but otherwise, if push comes to shove, these people will get rid of their mid-2012 13" MacBooks and replace them with... nothing. In a way, they already have - the fact that those machines are getting infrequent use means that they've been replaced.

But... is it healthy in the long term if people like us, current students, etc are the only ones still owning/using traditional Mac/Windows computers for personal use? It already feels like the desktop machine (whether iMac, Windows, or anything else) that used to be ubiquitous 20 years ago has become a niche nerd/work item, and I think there's a good chance laptops will follow.

 

[bobcomer]

I'm sorry if I sound a little defensive, but please try to appreciate that I have done a lot of research into this given that I consider it the second big insult Microsoft directed my way (and the reason I am typing this on an iMac! it seems like every time Microsoft insults me, I buy an expensive Mac or two) and it feels like you are just quoting what most media types have reported.

Mostly because that's all that's necessary for me. I follow the hardware requirements because it's my job to do so, and I've never thought they were insulting me when I have old hardware or apps, I use them knowing they aren't supported, and that's just fine by me, it's my responsibility to keep the software running.

I've hit that problem much more with Apple and their purge of 32-bit apps, and then their switch to a different architecture, forcing me to buy new hardware to run their latest OS. So much so I wouldn't even think of buying a Mac for anyone at work. I have them at home because I like them, that's all, and I'll keep running my intel iMac for longer than Apple will support it. And I still have an intel mini that I could turn on if I need that compatibility, and it wont be running the latest and greatest OS.

1) I am pretty sure Microsoft has made a statement saying that "unsupported" means they don't guarantee that any patches won't brick you.

Of course they don't, but that doesn't mean they will brick you intentionally! Unsupported means just that, if it breaks, they wont help. Apple does the same.

2) There are actually instances of Microsoft bricking older machines. Go and hang around the vintage PC community. They removed AGP support in one of the Windows 10 feature updates - people got the feature update, their GPU was broken, and when they poked around, oh, it turns out AGP isn't supported anymore. One of the patches for Windows 7 required a CPU with SSE2 support, which was not required for Windows 7 prior to that date and the knowledge base article basically says "upgrade to a CPU with SSE2". There was also something that happened with some Intel Atom processors early in the Windows 10 lifecycle. I think there may also be something about early AMD64 CPUs - I think some versions of Windows require an instruction that the early AMD AMD64 CPUs don't support. Most of those changes affected very old machines, so they didn't get a ton of media coverage. But many people would consider an i7-7700 in 2025 a "very old machine" so that's not that comforting.

Sorry, no. I've been using computers since before Win3.1, never had a machine bricked, I control others PC's as well, never had a machine bricked, never had one bricked because of a supported update.

3) The "true" requirements for Windows 11 were announced and then pulled shortly after. It was the list that included the TPM 1.2, etc. Then the marketing department entered the picture and had them add the 8th gen CPU requirement, orphaning machines that were running the insider betas quite well. I am not even sure the 8th gen CPU requirement is there if you try to boot from the installer (as opposed to doing an in-place upgrade), that's how last minute it was added.

Microsoft can write the requirements however they want, it's not really a concern of mine. I wouldn't put Windows 11 on an older PC anyway. I don't particularly like OS version updates and never do them unless there's a very good reason to do it.

I've run Windows 11 on plenty of unsupported machines,

I haven't even tried.

 

[VivienM]

lol, what you are saying is ditching ALL pro markets that Apple created for several decades even for video and music industry. Clearly, you have no idea what you are talking about.

How many of those pro markets are not well-served by either a MacBook Pro or a Mac studio?

I keep watching videos of people doing 8K video editing on both of those machines, so... what am I missing?

I look at benchmarks of M2 Ultras and compare them to, say, benchmarks of mid-2010 Mac Pro or 2019 Mac Pros. The M2s are not exactly lacking in raw compute performance.

There are going to be niches that would benefit from PCI-e, niches that need GPUs other than Apple's GPU architecture, sure. But are those niches enough to justify the R&D that would be required for a completely different Apple Silicon architecture and/or continuing to support Intel?

And if I have no idea what I am talking about, how is it that Apple's strategy is exactly what I am defending? They are the ones not selling the products you think they should sell! So they are the ones allegedly "ditching ALL pro markets".

 

[Longplays]

Just gift them a new computer you cheapskate.

If they dont care enough to do anything then it isn't a priority for them.

I have a mid 40s friend still sporting a 2011 iPhone 4s until now. Last security update was 8+ years ago.

He sees no urgency to update. I even told him he looks homeless using one. He just smiles as it isn't important.

You're putting too much importance on what is impacting others that others dont care about.

1) CAD$129 is the number I picked because that's what Microsoft charged for a home edition Windows upgrade. Win95, 98, XP Home, etc were all that price. 7 Home might have been a little higher, maybe 139, but they had a 50% off launch promo.

I suspect Apple's price for a Panther or Tiger upgrade was similar?

I haven't exactly done a detailed business case on this, but it seemed like a reasonable starting point.

2) The people I am talking about have money. They could go and buy a new MacBook Air tomorrow. They might also be buying iPhones regularly so they are definitely an active Apple customer front.

But please explain to me, again, how you explain to someone who uses their laptop at most an hour or two per week or month that they should spend $1800 on a MacBook Air that they will use a few hours per month? When they do most of their computing on a smartphone or a work laptop?

It's the same thing with the old ladies with their impeccably-maintained mid-1990s car. They could afford a new car. Why would they spend $30K on a new car if their old one does what they need it to do for the 500km/year that they drive?

See, you and I are both old techies. We still use our Macs or Windows machines regularly, do a reasonable amount of our computing on a laptop/desktop (I presume you typed your posts on a Mac, not a smartphone/tablet?), etc. We're used to computers being good for X years and having to buy new ones afterwards. If anything, over the past decade and a half, X has stretched into X+2 or X+3 years, so unless Apple or Microsoft really screw us with an unexpectedly short lifecycle (which is why I'm upset about my then-4-year-old-desktop being told it's not good enough for Windows 11 especially when Intel didn't really have any measurably better processors than mine at the time of the announcement), that's fine.

As much as I've used my mid-2014 MacBook Pro as an example, Apple gave me a good price trading it in, I had a good six-year-and-one-battery-replacement run with it (which is the longest I've had any 'primary' laptop for...), off it went, I got an M1 Max MacBook Pro at launch for the highest amount I've ever spent on a computer (when in reality, a 24GB M2 15" MBA would have been a better fit for my wallet, but obviously that didn't exist in fall 2021), and life goes on. I've talked about my Sandy Bridge Windows laptops - fundamentally, the mid-2014 MacBook Pro was acquired when the warranty was ending on a Dell laptop that had had two motherboard replacements and four power adapters, so the fact that that laptop is still around and kicking two years after the MBP was traded in is a nice bonus, but if it didn't power on tomorrow, I wouldn't be heartbroken - I'd scavenge a few parts and drive it to WB's e-waste pile and life would go on.

But as I've gotten older and as smartphones have gotten more prevalent and because I went to school and work mostly in a non-IT field, what I've realized is that there are many people who used to spend hours in front of their laptops when they were in school a decade or two ago who now do most of their 'computing' on smartphones or work laptops. And occasionally, they might have something to do that requires a full-fledged computer, e.g. if you are preparing a job application, you probably don't want to do it on a smartphone, and you probably shouldn't use your existing employer's computer. But no one is going to spend $1800 every 5-7 years on a MacBook Air that they might use to write three job applications in those 5 years. Or at least, I don't know how to convince them to. Doesn't matter that they have the money - there are just a lot more appealing things to them than a $1800 computer that they will barely use and that may once again be "too old" next time they need to seriously use it.

The issue is this: in the connected age, it is reckless to run a computer on the Internet that does not get OS vendor security patches. OS vendors are, as you've said, not particularly interested in providing long-term support, especially when both major OS vendors now only get their money when you buy new hardware. And there are many, many people with limited computing needs who are unwilling to spend the kind of money they would have happily spent when they were in school on a laptop they would use infrequently, especially when that computer performs just fine for the limited things they do with it except for the OS security patches. You can do your job application just fine on a mid-2012 MBP with the original version of macOS... until you need a working web browser to access your Gmail account, look at the employer's web site, fill out an application, etc. It's that damn web that's the problem - you need a current-enough web browser and you need security patches, otherwise you shouldn't be web browsing. You could do the job application just fine on a G4 if it wasn't for that damn web.

It's also the fact that these machines are healthy. It's easy to convince someone that they need to replace a broken computer/car/appliance/etc. But telling them that a computer that is healthy, that does everything they need it to do, etc needs to be replaced because of security patches... is a tough sell regardless of whether they have the money. I wonder how easy it would have been to convince my retired mom to move on from her late-2013 15" retina MacBook Pro, but fate intervened, the SSD died, the official Apple repair price made no sense, so she quite happily got a 2020 Intel 13". But I think getting her away from the Intel to an Apple Silicon MBP when macOS drops Intel will be more of a challenge - as amazing as the AS Macs are, they don't do anything more that she needs. I'm trying to convince my parents that they should plan to replace their iPhone XRs this fall, and it's also a tough sell - for what they do, the XRs (with monthly AppleCare) are good enough and they don't see why they should spend $2200 on new phones.

(Please don't tell me that Apple doesn't view my parents as customers - since the launch of the iPhone, they have bought 7 iPhones, 2 MacBook Pros and not the base model ones either, a Mac mini with keyboard/mouse, one set of AirPods, and one or two el-cheapo iPads. Most/all with AppleCare. That doesn't make them Apple's best customer, sure, and they will never rush to the Apple Store on launch day to buy something that they don't really urgently need, but I think they are still a customer, and they certainly feel like they give Apple "lots" of money. Interestingly Apple has launched two products perfect for my parents in the last year... let's hope they are still around when my parents are in the market)

That's what bothers me about this - I think I could convince someone with a mid-2012 MacBook Pro to spend a few dollars every few years to have it stay current and usable, but they just won't spend $1800 on a new machine given how infrequently they use the old one. And if something changes and they suddenly need a laptop frequently, then they will buy one (which is one of the factors that drove covid-era laptop purchases)... but otherwise, if push comes to shove, these people will get rid of their mid-2012 13" MacBooks and replace them with... nothing. In a way, they already have - the fact that those machines are getting infrequent use means that they've been replaced.

But... is it healthy in the long term if people like us, current students, etc are the only ones still owning/using traditional Mac/Windows computers for personal use? It already feels like the desktop machine (whether iMac, Windows, or anything else) that used to be ubiquitous 20 years ago has become a niche nerd/work item, and I think there's a good chance laptops will follow.

 

[lowkey]

This is also how I see it. With multiple setbacks and delays in bringing out new generations of chips, the choice was basically either to do nothing, release another Intel-based Mac Pro, or do what they did.



You mean the lack of software is preventing you from coming back to the Mac? For architecture/CAD in general Apple Silicon GPUs should perform very well in theory (large amount of VRAM, super efficient rasterization, data sharing between CPU and GPU which accelerates geometry editing), but I can imagine that the CAD software is almost exclusively Windows for legacy reasons (please correct me if things have changed).

Gosh, if Apple just paid Autodesk to release Revit for AS we would be buying 8 M2Max Studios for our office the next day.

 

[VivienM]

Mostly because that's all that's necessary for me. I follow the hardware requirements because it's my job to do so, and I've never thought they were insulting me when I have old hardware or apps, I use them knowing they aren't supported, and that's just fine by me, it's my responsibility to keep the software running.

We'll just have to disagree there - I think there's something insulting when they tell me that a high-end, four-year old system is not good enough for their new OS based on some arbitrary requirement. Especially when, over the previous 25 years, they have never done that.

For as long as they charged for retail upgrades, they implicitly rewarded you for getting a high-end machine - your high-end machine had a chance of running the new OS half-passably, whereas someone who had a low-end machine designed around the previous OS was largely SOL.

Then they tell me my i7-7700 with 64GB of RAM doesn't get the new OS, but a Jxxxx Celeron from a year later can get it. And they say that the Celeron meets their "performance and reliability expectations" and mine doesn't.

Isn't that a bit insulting?

I've hit that problem much more with Apple and their purge of 32-bit apps, and then their switch to a different architecture, forcing me to buy new hardware to run their latest OS. So much so I wouldn't even think of buying a Mac for anyone at work. I have them at home because I like them, that's all, and I'll keep running my intel iMac for longer than Apple will support it. And I still have an intel mini that I could turn on if I need that compatibility, and it wont be running the latest and greatest OS.

I would argue that what Microsoft did to people with 7xxx Intel chips is WORSE than anything Apple is done. Effectively, they take a four-year-old machine and send you to the equivalent of OCLP if you want the new OS. When has Apple done that?

I don't like the purge of 32-bit apps, the purge of... well, everything (Classic, PowerPC, Carbon, etc). But fundamentally that is a more existential issue. Apple likes frequent purging, on the hardware side to some extent as well (e.g. getting rid of various interfaces at various times).

Of course they don't, but that doesn't mean they will brick you intentionally! Unsupported means just that, if it breaks, they wont help. Apple does the same.


Sorry, no. I've been using computers since before Win3.1, never had a machine bricked, I control others PC's as well, never had a machine bricked, never had one bricked because of a supported update.

What do you want me to say to that? You can google the examples I gave - people had their machines bricked for those issues. Just because you (or I) never happened to have an affected machine doesn't mean that it hasn't happened.

Realistically, I wasn't running Windows 10 on an AGP machine in 2017. I'm guessing you weren't either. But there are people out there who were running Win98/10 dual boots on C2D i865 motherboards who got burned by that one. And same with the others.

Oh, and if you want to talk more generally, my aunt had a Win2000 machine bricked by an update about 20 years ago. She had to pack up the machine and drive it 300km each way to me to boot it up into safe mode and fix it. I don't think it was a hardware support issue, though, just something where patch A required version B of some other Windows DLL which was in a separate patch, but somehow she hadn't had the patch installing version B of the other thing when patch A installed itself, so boom, blue screen on boot.

Microsoft can write the requirements however they want, it's not really a concern of mine. I wouldn't put Windows 11 on an older PC anyway. I don't particularly like OS version updates and never do them unless there's a very good reason to do it.

I haven't even tried.

Well, that's where we disagree, then. I've generally upgraded most of my machines, either Macs or Windows, to new operating systems around release date (I still have my Aug. 24, 1995 Windows 95 CD) or shortly after. With some exceptions for machines where reliability was most critical, e.g. a laptop used for school.

To come back to the point at the top of this post, perhaps that is why I am so insulted - for 25 years, Microsoft was quite happy to enable this. Even rewarded me for my good planning, e.g. I had much better experiences with Vista/7 than many others because I had acquired machines with the right graphics abilities long before Vista's release.

Then Windows 11 comes along and it's "f*** you. You should have bought a low-end Celeron a year later if you wanted our new operating system."

I've actually reached a point where I am increasingly tempted to gamble running it unsupported on the i7-7700. Frankly, I don't want to build a new Windows box until Intel gets their mojo back, if they ever do, or unless something comes along that really strains that machine, so I might as well start taking my chances. Notwithstanding their PR people's scary words (which I am trying to find, but it's hard to find scary words from 2 years ago on Google), you are right - they haven't done anything in 1.5 years to brick the older systems (which don't even have TPMs or any of the other requirements), and if anything bad happens, well, I have my Macs

 

[VivienM]

Just gift them a new computer you cheapskate.

If they dont care enough to do anything then it isn't a priority for them.

I have a mid 40s friend still sporting a 2011 iPhone 4s until now. Last security update was 8+ years ago.

He sees no urgency to update. I even told him he looks homeless using one. He just smiles as it isn't important.

You're putting too much importance on what is impacting others that others dont care about.

Is your friend aware that many carriers are shutting down their 3G UMTS or CDMA networks? Not sure what country you're in and what your country's carriers are doing. The 4s doesn't have LTE...

I never had a 4s, I had a 4 though, and I will say, the 4 had among the best battery life of any of my iPhones. Much better than the garbage 6, which was by far my worst iPhone in all respects (I've had a 4/5/6/X/11 Pro Max/14 Pro Max). But... 11 years later, the battery on that thing must be dreadful, and I presume Apple stopped offering battery replacements a while ago?

Ultimately, you are right - it bothers me that people in my circle of people that I care about would be running things with major league security vulnerabilities, but it certainly doesn't seem to bother them. And it annoys me that Apple/Microsoft are not trying to make my life easy trying to get them to be bothered by outdated insecure software and take action about it.

(But hey, I'm sure that they'll happily take the money of anyone I convince to buy a new iPhone or MacBook Air for security lifecycle reasons! And they won't even pay me a commission... )

 

[VivienM]

Mac Pro/Studio shipped ~75,000 in the same year.

Studio volume is THAT low?!?!?!?!?!?

 

[VivienM]

The iMac Pro had a 256 GB option, and you could upgrade it to 512 GB with third-party memory modules.

Okay, my mistake.

The iMac Pro is really an unusual machine, and one I admit that I know far too little about. Hadn't occurred to me that it would have out-RAMmed the trash can, but apparently yes...

 

[Longplays]

Is your friend aware that many carriers are shutting down their 3G UMTS or CDMA networks? Not sure what country you're in and what your country's carriers are doing. The 4s doesn't have LTE...

I never had a 4s, I had a 4 though, and I will say, the 4 had among the best battery life of any of my iPhones. Much better than the garbage 6, which was by far my worst iPhone in all respects (I've had a 4/5/6/X/11 Pro Max/14 Pro Max). But... 11 years later, the battery on that thing must be dreadful, and I presume Apple stopped offering battery replacements a while ago?

Ultimately, you are right - it bothers me that people in my circle of people that I care about would be running things with major league security vulnerabilities, but it certainly doesn't seem to bother them. And it annoys me that Apple/Microsoft are not trying to make my life easy trying to get them to be bothered by outdated insecure software and take action about it.

(But hey, I'm sure that they'll happily take the money of anyone I convince to buy a new iPhone or MacBook Air for security lifecycle reasons! And they won't even pay me a commission... )

He replaces when it is beyond economic repair.

He asked me about the MBA M1 but opted for a Pentium.

He started talking about his Pentium then I change the topic to redirect the topic.

A week after he bought it Intel announced the retirement of the Pentium name. His computer prior to that was a Celeron.

I know this is mean but I often wish his devices break apart from a fall or get wet the year it gets its final security update.

His iPhone does not have a passcode or even TouchID.

What I've learned from my buddy is that do not add to your problems the challenges of others. As others may not see them as challenges or even important.

He thinks Windows 10 is more secure without a password or biometrics.

 

[Longplays]

Studio volume is THAT low?!?!?!?!?!?

That's the estimate volume.

That units are included in the 28.6 million Macs shipped worldwide.

So when any Mac Pro user that have requirements exceeding the M2 Ultra complains I point to that volume.

Mac chips is derived from the economies of scale of iPhone chips that shipped nearly quarter billion units in the same year.

Give Apple time... they will crack eventually come out with a chip of praise.

 

[sunny5]

How many of those pro markets are not well-served by either a MacBook Pro or a Mac studio?

I keep watching videos of people doing 8K video editing on both of those machines, so... what am I missing?

I look at benchmarks of M2 Ultras and compare them to, say, benchmarks of mid-2010 Mac Pro or 2019 Mac Pros. The M2s are not exactly lacking in raw compute performance.

There are going to be niches that would benefit from PCI-e, niches that need GPUs other than Apple's GPU architecture, sure. But are those niches enough to justify the R&D that would be required for a completely different Apple Silicon architecture and/or continuing to support Intel?

And if I have no idea what I am talking about, how is it that Apple's strategy is exactly what I am defending? They are the ones not selling the products you think they should sell! So they are the ones allegedly "ditching ALL pro markets".

There are many professional fields. MBP and Mac Studio? Do you even know that that M1,2 Max and Ultra chips aren't even close to RTX 30 series? Video editing is not everything and you clearly ignoring other fields especially 3D markets. How about gaming?

Apple can't compare their own chip with latest AMD, Intel, and Nvidia chips because their chips sucks. This is why they stopped comparing their chips to others since M2 series while M1 Max,Ultra did.

Since when PCIe slot is niche as it's very common to have them for consumer grade desktops? It was Apple who made it niche, not users.

It's very clear: they only care about the consumer and low end market. They are ditching Pro market, AGAIN. Ironically, they are focusing on gaming while their hardware performance is mediocre compared to current generation of GPU.

 

[VivienM]

He asked me about the MBA M1 but opted for a Pentium.

He started talking about his Pentium then I change the topic to redirect the topic.

A week after he bought it Intel announced the retirement of the Pentium name. His computer prior to that was a Celeron.

I know this is mean but I often wish his devices break apart from a fall or get wet the year it gets its final security update.

His iPhone does not have a passcode or even TouchID.

What I've learned from my buddy is that do not add to your problems the challenges of others. As others may not see them as challenges or even important.

He thinks Windows 10 is more secure without a password or biometrics.

Oh, I totally understand that feeling.

Has he had good luck with the low-end devices, at least? One thing I've learned as I've gotten older is that with a lot of things, not just computers, but clothing, shoes, chairs, etc, sometimes a higher-quality, higher-priced product will last much longer than a cheaper one, such that your total cost of ownership is actually lower having bought the pricier product and kept it dramatically longer instead of having bought three of the cheaper alternative.

But let me ask you this - wouldn't you be a bit upset at Microsoft if your friend's Celeron/Pentium was supported for Windows 11 or 12 or whatever, but the much nicer machine you had wished he bought the previous (or same) year was not? I presume you've tried your best to nudge him towards high-end/higher-quality things over the years, and if Microsoft instead rewarded his low-end purchase, how would you feel?

 

[VivienM]

There are many professional fields. MBP and Mac Studio? Do you even know that that M1,2 Max and Ultra chips aren't even close to RTX 30 series? Video editing is not everything and you clearly ignoring other fields especially 3D markets. How about gaming?

Apple can't compare their own chip with latest AMD, Intel, and Nvidia chips because their chips sucks. This is why they stopped comparing their chips to others since M2 series while M1 Max,Ultra did.

Since when PCIe slot is niche as it's very common to have them for consumer grade desktops? It was Apple who made it niche, not users.

It's very clear: they only care about the consumer and low end market. They are ditching Pro market, AGAIN. Ironically, they are focusing on gaming while their hardware performance is mediocre compared to current generation of GPU.

Apple has lots of challenges with gaming, not just the GPUs or the Apple Silicon architecture, etc. That's not news.

But I think you are not looking at the world as it's become. Consumer-grade desktops are increasingly niche, outsold by laptops. Many gaming desktops now have the GPU mounted sideways, which blocks off the other PCI-E slots. If you look at most gaming motherboards these days, they use most of the non-GPU PCI-E lanes for NVMe storage, not PCI-E cards. Gaming cases no longer have any drive bays for... any kind of future expandable storage. Laptops dropped their ExpressCard expansion a decade ago. PCI-E cards were among the first casualty of the pandemic-related electronics shortages - I don't know if they're back now, but PCI-E network cards, for example, weren't exactly plentiful in 2021. I, like many of the other old techies in this thread, find all of those trends depressing, but they are what they are.

And sure, they are ditching SOME pro markets. If you are doing something that their GPU architecture is not well suited for, and you need to run it on an on-prem workstation, then... oops, they don't care. I think those folks are the biggest losers from the move to Apple Silicon - everybody who needs non-GPU PCI-e cards has at least some hope that the new Mac Pro will serve them okay, but if you need a big huge ATI/NVIDIA-style GPU, oops.

Also, RTX 30xx series is a bad comparator. Apple has been pissed at NVIDIA for close to a decade, so even if they were still Intel, chances are, you wouldn't see those GPUs in a Mac.

OTOH, for OTHER pro markets, the M2 Max MacBook Pros are probably better than any comparable Windows laptop, especially if you're trying to do your work on battery.

I actually did some research for this thread earlier, and I was looking at some HP and Dell Xeon workstations. What is very clear is that HP/Dell get economies of scale, e.g. on PSUs, drives, etc. by sharing parts between those workstations and their servers. (Apple tried that with the Xserve and the G4 MDD, it didn't end well...) Apple doesn't have a server business and certainly is unlikely to try a server business with Apple Silicon, so that's one avenue for economies of scale that isn't open to them.

 

[VivienM]

That's the estimate volume.

That units are included in the 28.6 million Macs shipped worldwide.

So when any Mac Pro user that have requirements exceeding the M2 Ultra complains I point to that volume.

Mac chips is derived from the economies of scale of iPhone chips that shipped nearly quarter billion units in the same year.

Give Apple time... they will crack eventually come out with a chip of praise.

Do you have any sense of what the volumes for high-end Macs in the 1990s were? e.g. IIfxes, Quadra 800s/840avs, Power Mac 8100s, etc?

I admit that I would have thought any of those would have sold more than 75K/year... and if it's true that the Mac Studio sells less than a super-pricy 90s Mac, that tells you something about the evolving nature of pro workflows.

 

[Longplays]

Oh, I totally understand that feeling.

Has he had good luck with the low-end devices, at least? One thing I've learned as I've gotten older is that with a lot of things, not just computers, but clothing, shoes, chairs, etc, sometimes a higher-quality, higher-priced product will last much longer than a cheaper one, such that your total cost of ownership is actually lower having bought the pricier product and kept it dramatically longer instead of having bought three of the cheaper alternative.

But let me ask you this - wouldn't you be a bit upset at Microsoft if your friend's Celeron/Pentium was supported for Windows 11 or 12 or whatever, but the much nicer machine you had wished he bought the previous (or same) year was not? I presume you've tried your best to nudge him towards high-end/higher-quality things over the years, and if Microsoft instead rewarded his low-end purchase, how would you feel?

He's a hoarder and allows 3 dozen street cats to live indoors. I pity his mid 70s mum and his younger 30s brother. His mum spent $100k on renovations to fix their home a decade ago. Before she goes she has to do that again or else their family home may be declared a health hazard by his next door neighbors.

I learned not to get bothered by other people's stubbornness.

Personal lives are difficult as it is without loading yourself with others bad decisions.

They're adults with agency so why question them?

For anyone... I wish any newly released x86 chip to have a decade's support. Beyond that I feel that the companies that produce them deserves another purchase to fund R&D for future products.

When people insist that manufacturers support them even longer without just compensation holds back the majority of persons who want better future tech.

Why do I want it that way? So that when I replace my Mac a decade later I can jump from a 22nm > 5nm > 0.5nm (A5).

That will never occur if everyone lengthen their replacement cycle from 4-6 years to decade+.

Think of it this way... if Apple did not leave Intel in 2020 odds are 14nm Intel chips that lasted from 2014-2020 would still be with us until now.

Who wants to be on a 14nm chip within months of 2024? How about 14nm in 2034?

 

[sunny5]

Apple has lots of challenges with gaming, not just the GPUs or the Apple Silicon architecture, etc. That's not news.

But I think you are not looking at the world as it's become. Consumer-grade desktops are increasingly niche, outsold by laptops. Many gaming desktops now have the GPU mounted sideways, which blocks off the other PCI-E slots. If you look at most gaming motherboards these days, they use most of the non-GPU PCI-E lanes for NVMe storage, not PCI-E cards. Gaming cases no longer have any drive bays for... any kind of future expandable storage. Laptops dropped their ExpressCard expansion a decade ago. PCI-E cards were among the first casualty of the pandemic-related electronics shortages - I don't know if they're back now, but PCI-E network cards, for example, weren't exactly plentiful in 2021. I, like many of the other old techies in this thread, find all of those trends depressing, but they are what they are.

And sure, they are ditching SOME pro markets. If you are doing something that their GPU architecture is not well suited for, and you need to run it on an on-prem workstation, then... oops, they don't care. I think those folks are the biggest losers from the move to Apple Silicon - everybody who needs non-GPU PCI-e cards has at least some hope that the new Mac Pro will serve them okay, but if you need a big huge ATI/NVIDIA-style GPU, oops.

Also, RTX 30xx series is a bad comparator. Apple has been pissed at NVIDIA for close to a decade, so even if they were still Intel, chances are, you wouldn't see those GPUs in a Mac.

OTOH, for OTHER pro markets, the M2 Max MacBook Pros are probably better than any comparable Windows laptop, especially if you're trying to do your work on battery.

I actually did some research for this thread earlier, and I was looking at some HP and Dell Xeon workstations. What is very clear is that HP/Dell get economies of scale, e.g. on PSUs, drives, etc. by sharing parts between those workstations and their servers. (Apple tried that with the Xserve and the G4 MDD, it didn't end well...) Apple doesn't have a server business and certainly is unlikely to try a server business with Apple Silicon, so that's one avenue for economies of scale that isn't open to them.

What you are saying is totally meaningless. It's a fact that they abandoned a lot of pro markets and their ability to make chips are proven to be limited. M2 Ultra on Mac Pro? Really?

You are wasting my time on obvious issues.

 

[Longplays]

Do you have any sense of what the volumes for high-end Macs in the 1990s were? e.g. IIfxes, Quadra 800s/840avs, Power Mac 8100s, etc?

I admit that I would have thought any of those would have sold more than 75K/year... and if it's true that the Mac Studio sells less than a super-pricy 90s Mac, that tells you something about the evolving nature of pro workflows.

Between 1984 and 1989, Apple had sold one million Macs. It sold 10 million over the following five years.

Multiply that by 2.62% for a rought unscientific estimate.

It is likely that Studio makes up ~60,000 (80%) of Apple pro desktops while the Pro is ~15,000 (20%).

As I pointed out to other users, other devices like laptops are "good enough" while the Mac Pro is too "perfect".

So whenever anyone wants Apple to spend more on the Ultra/Extreme chip I point out the ~75,000 annual shipping worldwide figures.

Hence the $7k base price makes sense.

My friend complains that his cheap laptop's display hurts his eyes. I looked it over and it has a TN panel. So I understand why he hates using it. The replacement he got still has a TN panel.

Both he bought from a brick & mortar store in a mall because he wanted the salesman to fix it up for him.

I told him to get a MBA M1 for the better user experience but he fears that his 3 dozen cats may pee on the keybaord and cause costly repairs.

I'd forgive his mum or your late aunt for being computer illiterate but a mid 40s male not know how to use a computer? In what barn was he raised in?

 

[bobcomer]

We'll just have to disagree there - I think there's something insulting when they tell me that a high-end, four-year old system is not good enough for their new OS based on some arbitrary requirement. Especially when, over the previous 25 years, they have never done that.

Yeah, we just have to disagree, but I just think we have a different focus point. You are more concerned with running and testing with current OS's. And I'm more concerned with, does what OS and hardware I have still run whatever I need to run, or what ever one of my users needs. Perhaps my way is even more risky in that I become the support for whatever. We still have 1 Windows 7 user machine still in service. I already have it's replacement, but I haven't configured it yet, and I specifically ordered Windows 10 on it. I don't like one of the things in the Win11 preview, as it breaks one of the apps they need, so it gets windows 10 and it'll stay on Windows 10. A 13th gen i5 running Windows 10. . I still have VM's and even a few PC's in my office that run older OS's -- just in case... I never really even paid attention to what you're concerned with. Yes I test with new OS's versions, even before they're released, but I make sure they're running in a supported environment. And I complain about what I don't like or what doesn't work to them. . And where I feel somewhat insulted is when they totally ignore any beta testers feedback! (which happens most of the time)

I've never ran a beta in the Apple world, this is my happy little place where I just run mainstream stuff and I don't concern myself with anything, I just want it to work. Not that I haven't had problems that Apple has ignored, but they're mainly hardware and if it's just software I quit using it. Eventually I just quit using the hardware too -- like me just trading in my M1 Studio and getting an M2 Mini Pro.

 

[bobcomer]

What do you want me to say to that? You can google the examples I gave - people had their machines bricked for those issues. Just because you (or I) never happened to have an affected machine doesn't mean that it hasn't happened.

Anecdotal evidence is an unknown, I don't know what the reporter did prior and it could have been all their fault. Something widely reported I trust, a few reports, not really. What I run into, now I trust that always.

And no, I just don't find a 4 year old machine not getting the newest OS as insulting. I'd just keep running Windows 10 on it.