Funny, they were enough of a category to save the company from bankruptcy. Think different.Enthusiasts aren't really a product category you can build around if you're Apple.
Funny, they were enough of a category to save the company from bankruptcy. Think different.Enthusiasts aren't really a product category you can build around if you're Apple.
I'm a die hard Mac fan and a 3D artist and… it's been a tough road. For the sort of GPU renderers I've been using the past few years (Redshift, Octane) Windows and CUDA has been essential. The last 6 months or so I've been able to use Redshift on my Mac Pro and it's been really great.It really depends on how you want to define success, right?
Only Apple knows what they invested into the product, what they projected their sales to be, and what they actually were. I'm sure they also have some sense of it's value as a halo / prestige device too, making pure ROI calculations a little fuzzy.
I can only come at it from a "does this make sense for X use case?" POV. I wrote a whole mountain of text out, but nobody really wants to read that stuff. IMO:
Disclaimer: I seriously considered a MP for a new workstation earlier this year to work in Houdini and Octane in addition to the usual Adobe stuff I do. I ended up with a 32C TR machine with an RTX 3090. It would have been almost four times (4x!!) the price to order a comparable max-ish-spec MP (28C, Vega II Duo) that still would have been significantly slower for my use case. I can handle a little Apple Tax here and there but that disparity was impossible to justify.
- It's great for FCP and Logic and other heavy Mac-only workflows. It's your only choice, anyways.
- It's probably very performant for video work (Resolve, Premiere, etc.). I don't know much about this market so I won't pollute those waters in this thread.
- I think it's a terrible buy for most OS-agnostic 2D work (Adobe, Harmony, Affinity) because it's overpowered for the use case and the market is price-sensitive. Almost everything in this category can be handled by a docked MBP or iMac if you're determined to stay in the Apple ecosystem. These people do not need a bundle of spare PCIe lanes or huge RAM headroom and they won't pay for it.
- I think it's an even worse buy for 3D work (CPU / GPU grunt per workstation or software license) because it's underpowered relative to the competition even when price isn't a factor, and worse when price *is* a factor. It's not Apple's design choices. They just bet on the wrong horses.
Ah. The YouTubers hot take is that the 2019 Mac Pro is going to be completely outdated by.... the next Mac Pro.
Dooooooom. Doom and despair all ye Mac Pro buyers.
The next Mac Pro will fix all their problems with the current one and be better and faster? How horrible.
Honestly, I also don't think the Apple Silicon transition will be completely problem free. So I don't tend to buy the YouTube overconfidence in performance. So far Apple Silicon GPU performance has been fine, but not that competitive with something like a Mac Pro. Max Tech was talking about the W5700 and performance, but he neglected to mention we haven't seen anything from Apple anywhere in the league of a W5700 yet.
I know for a fact Apple has been updating the GPU drivers with fixes, especially in Big Sur.That's not all that was being discussed, though. Part of the issue is that Apple has been useless supporting the thing, with all kinds of GPU/driver issues that Apple themselves are fully in control of fixing, but there are still issues a year later. No excuse for that at all in a "Pro" workstation, and very poor showing by Apple.
Don't understand why youtuber will buy 7,1. I think just to look cool in their video.Ah. The YouTubers hot take is that the 2019 Mac Pro is going to be completely outdated by.... the next Mac Pro.
Dooooooom. Doom and despair all ye Mac Pro buyers.
The next Mac Pro will fix all their problems with the current one and be better and faster? How horrible.
Honestly, I also don't think the Apple Silicon transition will be completely problem free. So I don't tend to buy the YouTube overconfidence in performance. So far Apple Silicon GPU performance has been fine, but not that competitive with something like a Mac Pro. Max Tech was talking about the W5700 and performance, but he neglected to mention we haven't seen anything from Apple anywhere in the league of a W5700 yet.
Don't understand why youtuber will buy 7,1. I think just to look cool in their video.
I agree with most of what you say. We differ in that although many are at a loss to articulate it, they are justified in being upset about the Mac Pro. Apple abandoned the enthusiasts and gave them no enthusiast mode of Mac Pro. Rmmaterial if they get it for status, or tinkering, or genuine technical need, it’s a machine the enthusiasts want, and apple essential to;d the think different enthusiasts to go **** themselves.I get in ye olden days that you had to have a Power Mac or even early Mac Pro to cut video well in FCP or Premiere. But that was a long time ago. These days you can do simple cutting of 4k on... almost anything. I mean even your phone would be just fine if you had a large enough screen on it.
The Mac Pro still absolutely destroys an M1 in stuff like complex compositing with a lot of content. Sorts of things that would really push a GPU. Also the sort of stuff YouTubers, and people like (I think) Paul Chato aren't doing.
It's going to take a lot of work for Apple to catch up to something that has a Vega Duo or two thrown into it. And I'm curious (and skeptical) if they can do that with a system-on-a-chip.
But for people who aren't really the target audience of the Mac Pro, there always were solutions that were better and cheaper. If you bought a Mac Pro as a status symbol you're going to be disappointed. Paul Chato's videos are always especially grating to me because he's clearly one of the old school Power Mac guys. I get it but... he always seems attached to this idea of Apple and the industry at large that isn't really a thing anymore. And he'll just complain endlessly about it like it's Apple's fault.
There is a lot you can criticize Apple for. I think they've done an awful job with macOS recently, and supporting third party devs. But endless complaining about the Mac Pro is not really where it's at.
(I also think a lot of the YouTube speculation about future Apple Silicon designs is wildly off base. It just seems like it's random multipliers applied to core counts evenly.)
Funny, they were enough of a category to save the company from bankruptcy. Think different.
Paul Chato's videos are some of the cringiest content I come across on Youtube. An angry old guy upset the world has changed while adopting the clickbait look of people young enough to be his grandkids at this point.I get in ye olden days that you had to have a Power Mac or even early Mac Pro to cut video well in FCP or Premiere. But that was a long time ago. These days you can do simple cutting of 4k on... almost anything. I mean even your phone would be just fine if you had a large enough screen on it.
The Mac Pro still absolutely destroys an M1 in stuff like complex compositing with a lot of content. Sorts of things that would really push a GPU. Also the sort of stuff YouTubers, and people like (I think) Paul Chato aren't doing.
It's going to take a lot of work for Apple to catch up to something that has a Vega Duo or two thrown into it. And I'm curious (and skeptical) if they can do that with a system-on-a-chip.
But for people who aren't really the target audience of the Mac Pro, there always were solutions that were better and cheaper. If you bought a Mac Pro as a status symbol you're going to be disappointed. Paul Chato's videos are always especially grating to me because he's clearly one of the old school Power Mac guys. I get it but... he always seems attached to this idea of Apple and the industry at large that isn't really a thing anymore. And he'll just complain endlessly about it like it's Apple's fault.
There is a lot you can criticize Apple for. I think they've done an awful job with macOS recently, and supporting third party devs. But endless complaining about the Mac Pro is not really where it's at.
(I also think a lot of the YouTube speculation about future Apple Silicon designs is wildly off base. It just seems like it's random multipliers applied to core counts evenly.)
Yea the ONE and only time the company almost went bankrupt! the one time the company was formed with a confounding enthusiast. The one time after formation it was sold only to enthusiasts for years. The one time for decades it was sold to enthusiasts as the majority of their market share. The one time for decades financial analysts and others noticed its rabid loyal customers at its core were enthusiasts. That one time for decades that enthusiasts in Hollywood would shove macs into media constantly giving it free exposure. the one time enthusiasts helped it transition from computers into iPods and broader markets by being enthusiastic evangelists And supporting a product panned by the broader market...yea that one time...?This rebuttal reminds me of those nagging spouses who point out that one time you did that one thing twenty years ago and still bring it up constantly.
It was great for Apple and those enthusiasts back then. But time marches on, and Apple would never have grown to be as successful as it is if catering to its old customers was its overriding concern. Yeah, it sucks if you're left out of the continuing vision of the company, but that's the world of consumer products. If something doesn't work for you, you buy something else. Demanding a company cater to you specifically is fine and well, just don't expect them to actually do it.
Apple doesn't owe me jack for being a Mac user 30 years, any more than I owe a computer company loyalty.
Paul Chato's videos are some of the cringiest content I come across on Youtube. An angry old guy upset the world has changed while adopting the clickbait look of people young enough to be his grandkids at this point.
MaxTech has incredibly dumb arguments too (I wonder what parallel dimension he wandered in from where Apple promised the 6,1 would have GPU upgrades) but he doesn't look as much of a tool while he does it.
You're missing the entire point of Apple's existence. Apple from the jump was about making mass-market products. As the market for computing devices grew, so did Apple. Bringing up its founding suggests you fundamentally misunderstand the entire company's history.Yea the ONE and only time the company almost went bankrupt! the one time the company was formed with a confounding enthusiast. The one time after formation it was sold only to enthusiasts for years. The one time for decades it was sold to enthusiasts as the majority of their market share. The one time for decades financial analysts and others noticed its rabid loyal customers at its core were enthusiasts. That one time for decades that enthusiasts in Hollywood would shove macs into media constantly giving it free exposure. the one time enthusiasts helped it transition from computers into iPods and broader markets by being enthusiastic evangelists And supporting a product panned by the broader market...yea that one time...?
a lot more than one company would kill for any one of those one times...
This rebuttal reminds me why people and the internet sucks, all the more so in combination.
An angry old guy upset the world has changed while adopting the clickbait look of people young enough to be his grandkids at this point.
Slot-based computers are still the vast majority of getting-****-done desktop machines, and when you add in the dedicated Gaming / 3D workstation / Game Development / Reality Simulation machines (cause these are all basically the same combo - consumer processor with stonking big gaming GPU), it just becomes even clearer how out of sync Apple is, especially when you look at their laptop designs.
No but lets face it, "on topic" can be a pretty vague term hereIt's not really on topic for the Mac Pro, but Apple dropping eGPU on the Apple Silicon Macs is one of the biggest WTFs. They've taken machines that could be real powerhouses for those customer categories, but then cut support for actually using desktop cards when you're at a desk.
Honestly I think dropping eGPU has more to do with these M1 machines being much more janky first gen parts-bin machines than anyone in the apple-o-sphere wants to admit. They're basically iPad Pros in a different form-factor - iPads can't run eGPU, so m1 macs can't either.
Apple's existence has gone through many periods. One almost to failure because some at apple thought exactly as you do. You're in good company with former CEO Skully.You're missing the entire point of Apple's existence. Apple from the jump was about making mass-market products. As the market for computing devices grew, so did Apple. Bringing up its founding suggests you fundamentally misunderstand the entire company's history.
There does seem to be a bit of a gulf between the 'I just need something that works' crowd and the tech enthusiasts who can't endorse anything but the latest (or yet to be released) products.This seems wrong on so many levels: the very people who were excitedly discussing the new Mac Pro throughout 2019 and shared their experiences with them in 2020 are now lamenting its demise in 2021.
Yeah, it has.When it comes to "pro" computers, the world hasn't changed, though. Apple and it's blogger / podcaster sycophants said the 2013 Mac Pro was the future, and upgrade slots were the past, but that's not what happened, at all.
Slot-based computers are still the vast majority of getting-****-done desktop machines, and when you add in the dedicated Gaming / 3D workstation / Game Development / Reality Simulation machines (cause these are all basically the same combo - consumer processor with stonking big gaming GPU), it just becomes even clearer how out of sync Apple is, especially when you look at their laptop designs.
That's what's so funny about the pearl-clutching moral panic of Justin Long daring to go work for Apple's competition (hint, look who Tim Cook worked for, prior to Apple) and how it was such a betrayal - none of those ads care about the cpu, they're all focussing on how outdated Apple's laptop form-factors are, and how limited Apple's laptop performance envelope is. If you want to drive more than one external screen - nope, if you want to drive 3D graphics, nope, if you want a wide array of input options, or a drawing tablet, nope.
So on one end, you have Apple trying to "change the direction" of desktop machines, and everyone saying "no thanks", and on the other, Apple stamping its feet, and refusing to actually get with the times, and make the sort of form factors people want.
Many of the people who needed Power Macs back in the day use iMacs or laptops now.
Apple is selling more Macs than ever. The argument that Apple needs to "get with the times" is mostly predicated on the small wedge arguing they are the most important consumer segment, and that hasn't been true for two decades at least, ever since more laptops were sold than desktops and the world didn't look back.
Funny about that, there's no awards ceremony that collects enthusiasts together.No one was using their awards speeches to complain about the lack of an enthusiast tower SKU, after all.
They were switching to iMacs even when the cheesegrater Mac Pros were around.For which there is no evidence that this is a choice, because Apple has not tolerated the existence of a price / capability equivalent / competitor to the iMac.
There is an awards ceremony, it’s called a balance sheet.For which there is no evidence that this is a choice, because Apple has not tolerated the existence of a price / capability equivalent / competitor to the iMac.
Apple sold huge number of butterfly keyboard Macbooks, therefore the butterfly keyboard was beloved by customers, because look at the sales. Likewise the touchbar, everyone loves it, because look at the sales. Look at the sales of Face-ID iPhones, proves that noone really likes Touch-ID.
Any claim that Apple's success proves that their hardware is what their customers want, which ignores the hostage nature of their users, is disingenuous.
Funny about that, there's no awards ceremony that collects enthusiasts together.
Porsche is much more successful today with an SUV than it was early on. Yet, the reason the company is valuable is they did NOT forget their enthusiasts.Enthusiasts are critically important for emerging / minority platforms, and Apple certainly would not have survived without those true believers back in the day. Apple is now is a very fundamentally different company than the scrappy, threadbare survivor Jobs inherited after he took the helm for the second time.
Back then they were a computing company first and foremost and those users were first-class customers. Today Apple is a consumer electronics brand that also happens to make computers, more a vertically-integrated conglomerate like Sony than a focused computing OEM like HP or Dell. I'm not sure the old logic about needing enthusiasts still applies to a behemoth of this scale and in this market segment. Does Google need enthusiasts? Or Wal-Mart, Facebook, Amazon, Tencent? I ask that earnestly. That's the field they're playing in these days.
To varying degrees of success Apple is involved in phones, speakers, audio devices, integrated all-in-ones, laptops, wearables, tablets, credit cards, streaming services, etc. They're getting into AR and cars (?!). The front page of apple.com today only shows a sliver of a laptop halfway down the page, the only indication they make traditional computers at all.
And they're making money hand over fist while largely ignoring those old tinkerer fans, so it's obviously working at some material level. Apple's market cap was $5B in 2000 and $2,023B in 2020. When you're grown 40,460% in scale the rules are just different.
( Still waiting for my xMac. ?♂️ )