Mac Mini
They took the discrete GPU's out so it's a $900 toy relatively
I Agree the HD4000 is not all that hot. But the next Gen Iris is really pretty damn good and that will be in the next version.
MBP
Glued batteries and soldered RAM, seriously? I've got a 2006 MBP that is going strong because I've upgraded RAM and disk. The SSD just crashed again, I'm updating it with a brand new one. Can't do that anymore. I could even replace the old battery if I wanted. This was the one that actually had a door on the back for easy swapping out components, remember that? What a great design.
Every Manufacturer are copying this in some for or another. Of course you can go the separate component route, but that just makes it all heavier. SSDs are still way bigger and slower that PCIe. the batteries are custom and very thin. The MacBooks are what they are because they are sealed, Strong, light and thin.
And if you have replaceable batteries you also have the means of getting fake / poor quality and we all know where that an lead... KaBOOOM.
I can of course see your point. But it's the way it's all going. At some point mobile devices are going to going to be integrated single boards, probably with bonded batteries and be about 3mm thick. The same will happen with laptops as they continue to merge with Tablets.
The other thing of course why do you care about upgradability... laptops are obsolete in 4-5 years. Get the 3 year warranty. Buy the best and forget about it. It's tax deductible!!!!! The amount of people on here who moan about the cost of a workstation... I have a buddy that drives a London Taxi... It cost him £30K and another a builder who just bought a hoist for £25K.... It's a freaking tool to make you money.
iMac
Since it's hardly upgradable after the fact you have to BTO. Pricing that out for a minimum computer I'm at $2500, for a mobile GPU/CPU machine! Give me a break, plus who wants another screen? Not me.
Seriously it's not a Mobile CPU. And if you don't want a screen that this is not for you anyway... but it's for millions of other people.
nMP
I've waited and hoped, and while there's a chance this might make SOME kind of sense I'm seeing that it probably doesn't. I do software development and play games (booted into Win 7). This looks like a bad gaming rig with too much CPU and not enough GPU, but would make a lovely development machine. However, for $3,000? I don't get it, I have a hard time believing the "professional" graphics market is that big.
I suspect Apple has lost it's way, and any rate I'm forced to go Hackintosh or straight up PC. Maybe not surprisingly I hear more people who are in my camp, than those who are falling in love with their latest products.
Sorry, what?! The GPU is insane. Gaming?! Er.. you need to see the Pixar Demo of what it can do. Oh and the pro graphics market is massive, stupidly big. Printing, Motion graphics, VFX, Photographers, CAD, architectural viz. Previz. Editing. Compositing. Illustration, book design, car manufacturing, dcc... + many many more.
This is the way of the future Central core machine with external storage.. Studios can Share external cards via Thunderbolt without have 10 of them sitting in their machines not being used to their potential.
And lets put this in perspective...
The point is what do you need this power for as a Developer? Do you Create billion Entry DB's or Compile a Few million lines of code?
What were you doing in 2003 for example?
Apple’s new Mac Pro would rank as the 8th most powerful
supercomputer on planet Earth in 2003
The insanity of it all is that the iPhone5s raw speed on Geekbench is
1400... my 2008 2.8 MacPro is
1530.
An iPhone almost beats out a 2010 Macbook Pro Even and faster than a mid 90s super computer!
The point is That if the software was there you and 80% of the world could probably do all your work on a iPhone, hooked up to an external monitor....
Even the gaming is nuts on the 5s - 156 Gflops
XBOX360 240 gflops
PlayStation 3 228.8 gflops
And this is doubling every year so the iPhone 6 should be faster than the 360... and potentially ( massive assumption here ) the one in 4 years if that continues... How many flops do you need.