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Thoughts on WWDC?

A

Alphonsus

macrumors member
Original poster
Jun 1, 2017
56
11
Massachusett
I know there were many hype about this and now it is here!!! What were the Pros and Cons? Did you get what you want? What other things should Apple improve?

My pet peeve is the MBP, $1299 model. Legit when I was in school reading they had a $1299 I was so happy and thought "Apple is actually listening to its customers". Then got home and saw it was for a 128 gb SSD. I was like "get that s*** out of here. That model is a disgrace to the MBP, I think Apple has forgotten the meaning and the usage of the MBP. I feel like they are making the MBP a vague term and it is for all, however for the more money you can get better specs.
 
Overall, great conference from iOS and macOS perspective. Amazon to AppleTV is a welcome addition as well. Looks like watchOS is heading in the right direction. Don't care for home speaker devices so I didn't pay attention to Siri speaker.
 
Everything I expected to happen with the MBPs and iMacs happened! Plus, they announced the super cool iMac Pro! I can only dream about that one because of the $5,000 price tag.
 
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I think Apple did pretty good this year and after years of ignoring the Pro market, it seems like Apple is actually giving us Pro users some love. The highlights for me were: VR support in Mac OS, Official External GPU support (along with the External GPU enclosure sold by Apple), refreshed iMacs, Dedicated GPU on 21" 4K iMac and of course, the big announcement was the iMac Pro. The refreshed MacBooks weren't as exiting but it's nice to see Apple keep the MacBook line updated rather than letting it fall behind like they did last year.

As I said in another post, my overall favorite thing was seeing the external GPUs since that instantly makes my 2016 13" TB go from Prius to Ferrari in the graphics department with a simple plugin. It will definitely be interesting to see how seemless the external GPUs work and hopefully it's easy as plug and play. I'll know for sure when my shipment comes in.

Overall though, I finally feel like Mac is getting treated as part of the apple family instead of a 2nd class citizen. Seeing how well apple did with the iMac Pro makes me wonder what they have in store for the new Mac Pro...
 
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Overall I had low expectations and it was about spot on with what I thought would happen.

A few positives. Being that there is now a $1299 model and stores like BestBuy typically have $200 off deals. There will be better deals on these machines.
 
I just finished watching it tonight on replay. I'm more excited about this High Sierra update in the fall and how it's going to make Safari work faster and seamlessly with video on the web. I think High Sierra will make the current Macbook Pro 2016 and this refreshed 2017 work very well and surpass our current experience with the current regular Sierra.
 
Nothing there for me...

Another WWDC and another time the fat man is saying that because they made the bloody thing so small they can't do **** with it"... More RAM needs redesign of a circuit board? Oh no... How could possibly that be done?! Cutting edge electronic engineering.... My god... That possibly cannot be done....

We won't give you touchscreen, we will give you a little Meet the Parents "milk the cat" strip... We know what you want.

Ah well.. as long as the Starbucks crew can edit their photos and videos I guess the rest of us PROs who need an actual PRO machine will look elsewhere for the power that is needed to run complex CFD simulations and engineering analyses... They all run on Windows anyway...
 
I'm impressed they updated so many computers in one single go-round. The MBP update was minor in every regard, but nonetheless a slight performance bump - it seemed unlikely they would add every feature under the sun so shortly after the last release. Apple's prior announcement of the modular Mac Pro, today's announcement of the iMac Pro, and the iMac updates all show Apple IS responsive to the criticism they have received in regards to their power users.

High Sierra is going to be exciting, even if it is mainly unchanged from the current Sierra except for bug fixes (as the naming convention has done in the past) because it will feature APFS. I wanted ZFS to replace HFS+, but APFS sounds pretty good nonetheless, and will replace one area that has become a weak point in Macs.

I'm not surprised the MBP pricing did not change because those lower pricing predictions were made when analysts believe the MacBook Air would be discontinued. As it will not be, the MBA will remain Apple's value machine, at least for a few more years.
 
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Typswif2fingers said:
Nothing there for me...

Another WWDC and another time the fat man is saying that because they made the bloody thing so small they can't do **** with it"... More RAM needs redesign of a circuit board? Oh no... How could possibly that be done?! Cutting edge electronic engineering.... My god... That possibly cannot be done....

We won't give you touchscreen, we will give you a little Meet the Parents "milk the cat" strip... We know what you want.

Ah well.. as long as the Starbucks crew can edit their photos and videos I guess the rest of us PROs who need an actual PRO machine will look elsewhere for the power that is needed to run complex CFD simulations and engineering analyses... They all run on Windows anyway...
Click to expand...

I don't know why you'd even consider mac computers for that sort of application in the first place windows is obviously the more dominant platform for any sort of engineering or CAD software.
 
Bigtyme07 said:
I don't know why you'd even consider mac computers for that sort of application in the first place windows is obviously the more dominant platform for any sort of engineering or CAD software.
Click to expand...
Because people and are incapable of expressing a balanced opinion about pros and cons of a product taking into account different points of view. Just because a device doesn't match their specific needs or is targeted towards a different type of user, it immediately becomes a "bad machine" that "real PROs" cannot use. This is nonsense. There are many categories of professionals, and not all of them need an insane amount of RAM or a beefy graphics card. Just for the records, I'm indeed among those who would like Apple to offer *a little more* on that side, but saying that the current MBP is a computer that can only "surf the net" or "edit photos at Starbucks" (as people are claiming in some threads) is ludicrous.

The irony is that no MBP model has ever included that kind of hardware, and yet people act as if it this were a surprise every time a new refresh comes out. The MBP is intentionally designed as a balanced mix of performance, portability and efficiency. If it does not meet your needs, there are plenty of options available, there's nothing wrong with being happier with another machine or brand.

Back on topic, this WWDC saw the announcement of new iMacs, of the rumored iMac Pro and of a MBP refresh. On the software side, we got a new OS which can natively support eGPUs (a very relevant update) and 4K decoding solutions (either hardware of software) for both new and old Macs. It's a lot of stuff, and I don't see how anyone can say in good faith that Apple didn't care about pro users this time around.
 
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this was the first keynote in 2-3 years that I actually think was pretty good. This keynote made me feel excited for the future. I'm really looking forward to high sierra.

Past keynotes always made me wonder if I should wait to see if they get their act together or switch to windows immediatly.
 
I have been watching the keynotes for a long time. I have a hard time getting past all the hype these days. I don't get the feeling anymore like they are introducing us to something new. I feel it is more about "selling us" something new.

There used to be a time when "oh ya, one more thing" meant something, people were excited, and Apple delivered. I am sure it is still exciting for many, but from an overall perspective, not what it used to be. The funny thing is technology has come a long way, but the innovation has not.

Also, I have a hard time getting past Phil. I can't help but think one day he is going to have a heart attack on stage.
 
I loved the fact that Apple is focusing on core technologies this time. Things like the AI and AR acceleration APIs are difficult to understate. Metal 2 looks amazing - still reading through the documentation but so far it seems like Apple has caught up with Vulkan and maybe even surpassed it in some regards. APFS is great and a major step forward.

What I found slightly disappointing is the lack of changes to macOS. I'd expect improvements to Messages etc. to bring feature parity between iOS and macOS, but aside the core tech nothing seems to have changed.
 
Typswif2fingers said:
Nothing there for me...

Another WWDC and another time the fat man is saying that because they made the bloody thing so small they can't do **** with it"... More RAM needs redesign of a circuit board? Oh no... How could possibly that be done?! Cutting edge electronic engineering.... My god... That possibly cannot be done....

We won't give you touchscreen, we will give you a little Meet the Parents "milk the cat" strip... We know what you want.

Ah well.. as long as the Starbucks crew can edit their photos and videos I guess the rest of us PROs who need an actual PRO machine will look elsewhere for the power that is needed to run complex CFD simulations and engineering analyses... They all run on Windows anyway...
Click to expand...

Just get over with the name and name means nothing. Are you saying that lawyers/solicitors are not pro? The MBP may suit their needs. Are you saying photographers or journalists are not Pro? The MBP may suit their needs.

Get something that suits you need.
 
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