Steve Job's vision of a future "Mac Pro"

[derbothaus]

Encryption.

Big deal. So far none of these companies will guarantee security or integrity enough for anyone I've worked with to use cloud for anything (They create their own clouds). And if they did Apple would have to stake it's entire future cash flow in insurance and the hope they never get hacked or lose anything. Freyqq is on the money with this. Same thing happened when Adobe demoed their web services CS stuff. All the managers were like "great", "Can you guarantee it?" and they said "Well...no, but...?" It was over. No upgrades for you!

 

[goMac]

Latency to a cloud is WAY unacceptable.

Plus imagine uploading a multi terrabyte video project to render. No thanks.

Plus, cloud can't guarantee stable computational speeds.

This idea already exists in stuff like Windows Azure virtual machines, and is a great example of how cloud can't replace local computing. (How many video editors out there are rendering on Azure? None.)

 

[Umbongo]

Latency to a cloud is WAY unacceptable.

Seriously. We have people looking at getting more than 16GB of memory because paging to disk isn't quick enough. Forget digital editing and content creation in the cloud for the near term.

 

[TheAnalogue]

Wirelessly posted (Mozilla/5.0 (iPhone; U; CPU iPhone OS 4_3_5 like Mac OS X; en-us) AppleWebKit/533.17.9 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/5.0.2 Mobile/8L1 Safari/6533.18.5)

While the cloud may work great for rendering I need a machine that can rotate 3d engineering models with thousands of parts in real time so I can be productive. The cloud can't do that. Plus the data I work with isn't to the point of being patented so I'm really not comfortable sending it over the Internet where snooping eyes can see.

 

[nanofrog]

While the cloud may work great for rendering I need a machine that can rotate 3d engineering models with thousands of parts in real time so I can be productive. The cloud can't do that. Plus the data I work with isn't to the point of being patented so I'm really not comfortable sending it over the Internet where snooping eyes can see.

Understandable IMO.

The comments on ISP bandwidth, particularly the low upload speeds with large data sets, and security are definitely valid for professional use.

 

[Velin]

I hate "the cloud." Me personally, and our business, we will never use "the cloud" or "cloud computing" to do the tasks we use our deskstations for. Speed, latency, security, data control, downtime, desire to control processes as we see fit = screw the cloud.

 

[dndlnx]

Who is Steve Job?

I laughed.

Oh and moving Mac Pro's to the cloud sounds ridiculous. But who knows...if anyone is going to do such a crazy thing it'll surely be Apple.

 

[sigmadog]

I hate "the cloud." Me personally, and our business, we will never use "the cloud" or "cloud computing" to do the tasks we use our deskstations for. Speed, latency, security, data control, downtime, desire to control processes as we see fit = screw the cloud.

As an old curmudgeon, I agree. I have a great distrust of "the cloud" and of the many anonymous persons that would potentially have access to my data in such a scenario.

My data is my livelyhood. There is no way I would trust the nebulous Cloud with such critical material. I'm not even willing to trust online backup services.

I guess I'm getting old and suspicious. Being around a long time and seeing so much of human nature made me that way, I suppose.

Also, I live in the Pacific Northwest, which means i know a thing or two about clouds. To me, clouds mean rain; rain is water; and water is bad for electronics. So there.

 

[ActionableMango]

I've been arguing for five years with a Telecom friend that Apple or Google or both are going to build their own ultra-high-speed networks. He always scoffed, until Google started launching in some markets.

I used to think so too, but both Google and Apple passed up the opportunity to use their huge cash piles to buy great wireless spectrum at auction. I am disappointed because it would have been great to push bits through a Google or Apple country-wide Wi-Fi/Wi-Max equivalent instead of trying to push them through cell towers at exorbitant rates.

I can only assume now that becoming a Telco is a whole can of worms that Apple doesn't want to be distracted with and Google is only experimenting with. Google undertakes many MANY projects which they then abandon, so I don't have any lofty dreams about their high speed Internet project yet.

 

[linuxcooldude]

I can only assume now that becoming a Telco is a whole can of worms that Apple doesn't want to be distracted with and Google is only experimenting with. Google undertakes many MANY projects which they then abandon, so I don't have any lofty dreams about their high speed Internet project yet.

My understanding was their high speed internet was a project designed to get internet service providers to upgrade their services. People cant watch youtube if they are still getting like dialup speeds and capped up the ying yang.

 

[AriX]

This is a dumb idea. The only people that need this type of processing power are large organizations who have enough resources to (a) buy a supercomputer or (b) use a distributed computing product that already exists.

Modern processors are powerful enough that even for professional-market customers (video editors, etc.), there is no need to outsource this processing to the cloud. In fact, doing just that would be WAY more expensive than doing it locally, considering the way ISPs are limiting bandwidth these days.

The fact is, there is no reason for Apple to do this because no one needs it.

But what about full, deep Virtual Reality, artificial intelligence, etc? One could argue that software development has hit a plateau. But there are lots of every day applications that could utilize massive CPU power.

-The ability to travel freely around Yosemite virtually...with absolute realism...from 5,000 miles away...

What? Have you ever heard of Google Maps? Google Street View? Now maybe these solutions aren't what you're talking about, but whatever you're talking about certainly doesn't require a supercomputer.

-A virtual personal coach or therapist

Ever heard of Eliza? It's been a standard feature of emacs, a Unix text editor, for years - and will run on anything (it was written in the 60s!). Even if something like this could be developed that was actually helpful, it wouldn't require intense computational power like you are suggesting.

- An iRobot

What the hell is an iRobot?

 

[chaosbunny]

I wouldn't want to give any big corporation unlimited access to ALL the stuff I do with my machine - especially not my work. Thank you very much. Personally, I will not be using iCloud anyway.

 

[philipma1957]

I hate "the cloud." Me personally, and our business, we will never use "the cloud" or "cloud computing" to do the tasks we use our deskstations for. Speed, latency, security, data control, downtime, desire to control processes as we see fit = screw the cloud.

So true.

 

[nanofrog]

What the hell is an iRobot?

From a consumer's POV, it's usually a robotic vacuum cleaner (iRobot Corporation).

 

[IceMacMac]

So true.

I hate the cloud model too. I'm not a fan of how this is headed. I'm just suggesting where I think Apple wants to take this.

Does anyone want to see the next iWork be Web based...outside of the folks at Apple? But it increasingly looks like we might be seeing exactly that.

Consider this: If someone came to this forum 9 months ago and suggested that you'd only be able to install Snow Leopard through the cloud...how crazy would that have sounded?

 

[IceMacMac]

This is a dumb idea. The only people that need this type of processing power are large organizations who have enough resources to (a) buy a supercomputer or (b) use a distributed computing product that already exists.

That's patently untrue and the profile of the MacPro user easily demonstrates your contention is invalid.

The guy who most justifies the purchase of a MacPro is a person who is doing a lot of 3d work. That userbase could radically benefit from just such a model.

But you are completely missing my core point: Apple could instantly inspire a whole new class of consumer applications that utilize VR and AI like we've never seen it before.

In terms of VR We are talking something far more elegant and immersive than the clunky Google Earth.

As for AI, you could see computers involved in a host of new capacities :
A digital legal consultant
A digital therapist
A digital personal coach
Let's Face reality: A digital friend.

Look around and software development seems like it's peaked out. But In reality software development is still in diapers.

Latency issues are certainly limiting for some applications, but not all.

Consider: I can search the entire internet faster for keywords than I can search my local hard drive for a file.

And if Apple wanted to, and trade commission regulators didn't get in the way, they could easily build the mother of all networks.

 

[zephonic]

The guy who most justifies the purchase of a MacPro is a person who is doing a lot of 3d work.

IME most 3D guys are on WinPC's. Apple still has a very strong presence in AV, though.

 

[PaulD-UK]

Consider this: If someone came to this forum 9 months ago and suggested that you'd only be able to install Snow Leopard through the cloud...how crazy would that have sounded?

Hi
Consider too: If someone had suggested that at a stroke Apple would kill off 10 years of professional workflow software - Final Cut Pro 1-7/FCS 1-3 - and leave thousands of post-production businesses and tens of thousands of professional people, reliant for their livelihood on existing collaborative workflows, with no practicable Apple solution as of June 21st 2011...
...how crazy would THAT have sounded.

Apple's seemingly complete disregard of how creative professionals view its corporate/brand 'image' in his summer's FCP debacle seems to me to only lead to one clear conclusion:
That Apple is leading up to some cataclysmic announcement that will be several orders of magnitude greater - and affect many times more people - in the near future.

After Lion, what?
iOS XX Cumulo-Nimbus?
Thunder-clouds....

 

[linuxcooldude]

Hi
Consider too: If someone had suggested that at a stroke Apple would kill off 10 years of professional workflow software - Final Cut Pro 1-7/FCS 1-3 - and leave thousands of post-production businesses and tens of thousands of professional people, reliant for their livelihood on existing collaborative workflows, with no practicable Apple solution as of June 21st 2011...
...how crazy would THAT have sounded.

Apple's seemingly complete disregard of how creative professionals view its corporate/brand 'image' in his summer's FCP debacle seems to me to only lead to one clear conclusion:
That Apple is leading up to some cataclysmic announcement that will be several orders of magnitude greater - and affect many times more people - in the near future.

After Lion, what?
iOS XX Cumulo-Nimbus?
Thunder-clouds....

I think the same people would hold back progress where Apple wants to be right now. It would of taken at least 10 years to get where we are today with FCP X if the film and tv industry was really the deciding factor.

I don't think Apple wants to be held hostage to someones work flow when they want to go to the next level. Its unfortunate in some ways, but I can understand why they did it.

 

[tamvly]

-The ability to travel freely around Yosemite virtually...with absolute realism...from 5,000 miles away...
etc

OK, maybe I'm not forward looking enough, but I don't want to cruise around Yosemite virtually. See Silicon Snake Oil by Clifford Stoll.

 

[philipma1957]

Quote:
Originally Posted by IceMacMac
-The ability to travel freely around Yosemite virtually...with absolute realism...from 5,000 miles away...
etc

OK, maybe I'm not forward looking enough, but I don't want to cruise around Yosemite virtually. See Silicon Snake Oil by Clifford Stoll.

Reading above If I had the ability to travel freely around Yosemite virtually ... with absolute realism...from 5,000 miles away... etc.


Would not I be a character in the movie Matrix? I know I don't want that!

 

[gnomeisland]

Newsflash: most high end video workstations aren't connected to the internet.

How does that work then?

LOL. sorry but you totally missed his meaning. "Video dumb terminal" have *nothing* to do with video editing or video in the sense you think of it now. They are essentially exactly what the OP described but the rapid increase of local computer power that is inversely proportional to price has consistently foiled the adoption for everything but the largest institutions.

Well and Google with their Chrome OS. So many the OP is on to something.

 

[goMac]

LOL. sorry but you totally missed his meaning. "Video dumb terminal" have *nothing* to do with video editing or video in the sense you think of it now. They are essentially exactly what the OP described but the rapid increase of local computer power that is inversely proportional to price has consistently foiled the adoption for everything but the largest institutions.

Well and Google with their Chrome OS. So many the OP is on to something.

Except for latency and throughput. Apple can have the biggest computing cluster the world has ever seen, but if I can't get my terabytes of data there and back quickly, it doesn't at all matter.

Chrome OS works specially because it deals with extremely low amounts of data, and latency acceptable applications (and even then it hasn't sold very well at all.) The same concepts don't apply to pro work because you're dealing with very high bandwidth amounts of data.

People who run these sorts of configurations have very high bandwidth and low latency fiber running to the computing resources. Until Pros have these sorts of connections to the "cloud", this idea would never get off the ground.

 

[getz76]

I don't think Apple wants to be held hostage to someones work flow when they want to go to the next level. Its unfortunate in some ways, but I can understand why they did it.

I think the next level for Apple is the much more lucrative consumer and prosumer market.

Apple has a long history of abandoning legacy users. They can get away with it because the main install base is non-corporate. They were able to get away with it in the educational/non-profit market because purchasing was not beholden to the same scrutiny and sophistication in a corporate shop, and now they can get away with it because the vast majority of the install base is the iPod/iPhone user who wants a matching fashion accessory. Just pop into the MacBook Pro forum, and you will see a large number of people sporting $2,000 machines to play Farmville. Whatever, if people have the money I do not care what they spend it on, but the majority of the crowd is iPhoto instead of Photoshop and iMovie instead of Final Cut.

My timeline:
1. Apple ][e
2. Apple IIgs (load of potential, completely abandoned by the time it launched)
3. Briefly a Mac SE/30 (how did they convince us that small monochrome screens on very expensive machines was a step forward?)
4. 18 years of Windows/DOS machines, relatively happily.

I did not come back until after the Core 2 Duo machines were introduced. I knew Apple would eventually abandon the PowerPC base. I came back because I could run Windows on the machines and because Final Cut is OS X only and Pro Tools is just easier to deal with on a Mac (until Lion, that is).

I am not complaining. I have no problem going back to Windows if necessary. They are just tools.

 

[linuxcooldude]

I think the next level for Apple is the much more lucrative consumer and prosumer market.

When final Cut Pro first came out in 1999 it was aimed at that market. They just picked up the Pro's along the way.