
Apple Introducing New Mac Pro, Pro iMacs and External Display Over Next Year - uptown
https://techcrunch.com/2017/04/04/apple-pushes-the-reset-button-on-the-mac-pro/
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macintux
Active discussion here:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14031619](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14031619)

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akurilin
I've definitely struggled with getting a good bang for my performance buck on
the macOS ecosystem for building a video editing or gaming rig. These days you
can find a pre-made PC with 32gb RAM, GTX 1070, core i7 and more for $1400,
but mac specs come nowhere close for that kind of price. Really don't want to
move back to the Windows ecosystem but also paying over 2x for worse specs is
silly.

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CHaro
If you don't want to code on it, windows is fine. (and if you can get past
them violating your privacy)

If you need to code on it.... just don't

I love my windows machine for doing all my leisure activities. Its a shame
that after all these years they can't learn from linux/mac and make a decent
dev environment

I remember how mind blowing it was to install pip/python on my windows when I
was first starting out. Easily installing packages from the cmd, so
revolutionary! /s

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stcredzero
_If you don 't want to code on it, windows is fine._

 _If you need to code on it.... just don 't_

VirtualBox with Xubuntu Linux in Seamless mode for my Windows laptop. I bought
a Windows laptop with a GTX 1070. Now I can do VR on my laptop, but bash in
Windows was half baked. It's better to use VirtualBox!

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Rumudiez
> How to make Windows usable, step 1: install Linux.

FTFY

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p1esk
Windows 10 comes with Ubuntu installed.

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apocalyptic0n3
No, it doesn't. It comes with a portion of Ubuntu tools available for install
through some backwards way (or at least it was a few months ago when I
installed it). The bash console is probably not as good as PuTTY for SSH
management, and that was the big highlight of the functionality for me - being
able to manage my servers without pulling out another computer. It's better
than nothing, but it is no where near good enough for me as a dev who works in
Unix from development to production. I do use the bash console for some simple
server management when I am away from my work machine, but I could not imagine
it ever being a worthy replacement for iTerm2 (or any console on Windows,
really, not just the Bash console)

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frou_dh
Since they tacitly acknowledge that it still makes sense for people to be on
5,1 graters, I hope this means those machines are officially supported for a
couple more major OS X versions.

i.e. I don't want to see macOS 10.13 being "trashcan or newer".

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jefe78
As someone with the 6,1 and a recently upgraded 5,1 (single CPU tray to dual,
GPU, RAM, SSD), I hope you're right. I like the idea of the 6,1 but in reality
the 5,1 is what I'd expect from a pro machine. The upgrade procedures for a
6,1 are not ideal and in some cases almost impossible. That's not a 'pro'duct.

Hopefully you're right!

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drivingmenuts
They really need to look at the Microsoft Surface line of products for some
cues. Especially, the Surface Studio - it has some great features, even though
I would consider it unforgivably underpowered/overpriced for what it tries to
do.

Kind of makes me want to corner Jony Ive and ask him what the hell was he
thinking letting Microsoft steal that march.

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egypturnash
Don't hold your breath:

> It’s worth noting that, when asked about a touch display here, in the
> context of efforts like Microsoft’s Surface Studio Schiller replies “No.”

> “That’s a whole other long discussion we can get into, but suffice it to
> say, it’s not a big need of the Mac Pro customers that we’re trying to
> address,” he says. “You mentioned again how we’re talking about both the
> iMac and MacBook – I do think that we have a two-prong desktop strategy with
> both iMac and Mac Pro, we think are each going to be important for pro
> desktops.”

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renaudg
tl;dr : they designed themselves into a corner with the current Mac Pro, next
ones will have modularity as a primary goal.

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ajross
Subtext: they don't actually have anything to show. There are no next ones
yet. They planned themselves into a corner by assuming no one wanted this
stuff, realize they're screwed, and are trying to spin their way out with
press hits like this one to keep developers from jumping ship.

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sooheon
Federighi pretty much confirms this; in the 4 years since the Mac Pro, they
realized that the Mac Pro won't handle hotter GPUs. But rather than
immediately beginning work on a Pro that would handle better GPUs, they just
thought better iMacs would be good enough "and really put a lot of our energy
behind that". They thought iMacs would be "pro" enough, until the backlash got
too much and now they're scrambling to regain developer/professional
confidence.

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stcredzero
_They thought iMacs would be "pro" enough, until the backlash got too much and
now they're scrambling to regain developer/professional confidence._

Yet another indication of how out of touch with their customer base they've
gotten?

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brians
Yes. They live on laptops. They develop on Macbook Pros, with (Linux!) servers
in a private cloud for heavy computational lifting.

The key idea of the Macintosh and the NeXT---the personal computer---is no
longer foremost. Maybe it's time to swing back that way again.

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pvelagal
"There’s music creators, there’s video editors, there’s graphic designers — a
really great segment with the Mac. There’s scientists, engineers, architects,
software programmers — increasingly growing, particularly our App development
in the app store"

This is going to be great for software developers.

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valuearb
How good is the performance bump they just announced for the Mac Pro? It's
also cheaper, right?

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rch
Is it just me or do they go to extreme lengths to avoid talking about machine
learning as a 'pro' workload? Surely there are more people doing ML and BI on
this class of machine ($6-12K) than there are producing high-end digital
cinema.

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sooheon
Yeah. They didn't get Nvidia cards on the MBPs either. They did acknowledge in
response to a question by Gruber that developers were the largest/fastest
growing segment of pro users.

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rch
I'd be fine with AMD kit if Apple helped make OpenCL a first-class citizen.

For the dev segment, I hope they look at Homebrew stats and not just regular
XCode users.

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dbrgn
> Apple is acknowledging that the Mac Pro they introduced in 2013 has run
> aground on the cleverness of its own design

Seriously? They're blaming it on "the cleverness of its own design"?

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desireco42
I really wish state of Linux is better. Nothing else comes to mind.

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givemefive
Linux works for me. Even the photography tools are pretty cool nowadays.

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desireco42
I wish this was true. I got myself a nice set of tools and plugins for
Lightroom, it is not easy to just transfer. I have Luminar for example and
full suite from Macphun, that is not easy to replace.

But, I do plan to get a new big monitor, and will connect this to new machine
running Linux and I can slowly start my transition. That way I can move
without fear of missing anything.

This is my thinking at the moment.

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dbrgn
I've heard good things about Darktable. I'm still a Lightroom user though so
far.

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notheguyouthink
Well, minor mention of MacBook Pros too.. I'm saving & hoping for new Macbook
Pros this summer. I'll be really sad if i have to wait even longer.

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artursapek
They just released new ones in September (the ones with the emoji bar)

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notheguyouthink
I've been unhappy with the specs and unhappy about the
keyboard/touchbar/touchpad/etc. I'm hoping for improved version identifying
the vast number of complaints about that macbook.

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raverbashing
$500 off the price tag would help with regaining customer confidence

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devopsproject
lololololol

It will be $500 more expensive since "pro" users can afford it.

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ShirsenduK
Can't innovate anymore, actually yes! :P

