
Video Pros Moving from Mac to Windows for High-End GPUs - mpweiher
http://mjtsai.com/blog/2017/02/23/video-pros-moving-from-mac-to-windows-for-high-end-gpus/
======
outworlder
Big surprise. Video Pros now, developers next, common users last.

While Apple is focusing on trying to create the thinnest notebook on every
generation, other companies are actually making useful computers, laptops or
otherwise.

Right now, I've decided to take the money I'd spend on the cheapest Macbook to
buy a desktop system, plus a chromebook. I can have mobility and a lot of
performance, for a fraction of the price.

Even Windows is becoming more viable again, ubuntu core and all.

~~~
rayiner
What's the viable alternative? I'm looking for a replacement for my 2013 rMBP.
Every PC laptop has a fatal flaw. The Spectre x360 15 comes close, but has
less battery life (despite having a slightly larger battery), is bigger and
heavier, has only a dual core processor, and has a worse screen.

The XPS 15 is another option. Even with a significantly larger battery it
doesn't seem to have better stamina than the MBP. It's apparently been plagued
by QA problems, and offers a choice only between a 1080p and power-hungry 4K
(can't get high-DPI and 10 hour battery life in the same package).

I suspect, looking at the sales numbers, that you're wrong. Apple is giving up
on a certain group of users (who need fast GPUs). They gave on those users
years ago by shipping crappy OpenGL drivers. But they've correctly perceived
that common users don't want ports, or expandability. They want a fast machine
with a great screen and all-day battery life, and they want to hit those
metrics in the smallest package possible.

~~~
pidg
I recently trashed my 2011 MBP (oops) and spent a month without it. I decided
to try using my corporate-provided Surface Pro 4 instead to see how I could
get on with a similar-spec Windows 10 PC for personal use.

By the end of the month I had gone slightly loopy (seriously - MacBook
withdrawl is real), gave up and bought a 2015 rMBP. Personally I find macOS,
and its deep integration with Apple's hardware, too intuitive and 'invisible'
to the way I work to give up on it.

~~~
WayneBro
I feel like I'm in prison or an insane asylum when I have to use my Mac or iOS
devices after enjoying the freedom that I have using Windows all day.

I could go very far into detail here and list all of the extremely annoying
limitations that I run into, but instead I'll respond to your vague complaints
with my own. Apple quite obviously wants absolute control over _their_ device
and _their_ software whereas Microsoft lets me to do whatever I want with _my_
computers and _my_ software.

I have to have a Mac to make iOS apps, but as soon as those are no longer a
thing I'll toss all my Mac stuff straight into the garbage.

~~~
mattnewton
I've had the opposite experience. OSX is just weird bsd with a great window
manager and ui framework. You can easily sidestep gatekeeper, if that is your
complaint.

The hardware fit and finish is also second to none, and runs windows just fine
if that's your thing.

The alternative on windows is a machine that spies on me, has horrible ui bugs
and inconsistencies I run into constantly, and decides to auto update and
reset all my privacy settings in the middle of the night while I am using the
machine.

Not to mention it is often used with some awful trackpad. I haven't tried them
all but I have never seen a non-mac trackpad I could go back to.

~~~
AlexandrB
> The alternative on windows is a machine that spies on me, has horrible ui
> bugs and inconsistencies I run into constantly, and decides to auto update
> and reset all my privacy settings in the middle of the night while I am
> using the machine.

This exactly. I'm still baffled by claims that Windows 10 has a good desktop
UI when I see its iconography [1], huge click (touch) targets [2], and wildly
inconsistent use of whitespace [3]. That's not even mentioning the forced
updates and always-on telemetry. I'm not sure how one can say macOS is more of
a walled garden than Windows at this point, at least macOS's security features
will get out of your way if you ask nicely.

[1] [http://www.intowindows.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/07/Change...](http://www.intowindows.com/wp-
content/uploads/2015/07/Change-Recycle-Bin-Icon-in-Windows-10-picture1.png)

[2]
[https://cdn2.pcadvisor.co.uk/cmsdata/features/3632303/how_to...](https://cdn2.pcadvisor.co.uk/cmsdata/features/3632303/how_to_open_control_panel_in_windows_10_-_settings_app.jpg)

[3] [https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/sites/3/2017/...](https://cdn.arstechnica.net/wp-
content/uploads/sites/3/2017/01/neon-.png)

~~~
kbenson
> I'm still baffled by claims that Windows 10 has a good desktop UI when I see
> its iconography [1], huge click (touch) targets [2], and wildly inconsistent
> use of whitespace [3].

This almost reads as sarcasm. Some people really don't care about those
things, and using them as examples of why you're baffled just highlights that
disconnect between you and them. I don't use any bundled windows apps, and I'm
rarely in the settings (and I just search for what setting I want), so
iconography and whitespace design decisions in windows apps don't even factor
into it for me.

Neither OS X nor Windows feel as comfortable as my customized FVWM config did,
but windows gets a lot closer nowadays. I had to use OS X at work for a few
years and it _always_ grated.

> That's not even mentioning the forced updates

It's possible to disable them, you just have to put some effort into it (it
requires regedit). I think this is the right decision. If you want to disable
updates and you don't know how to change a registry setting, then for the good
of us all, the answer is _no_.

The tracking is a valid concern though.

~~~
mattnewton
I want automatic updates. I think this is a good thing. Chrome automatically
updates whenever I restart it. This is great.

I don't want updates when I am in the middle of something full screen like a
game, forcing a restart of the machine on me. This is madness.

I don't want ads for office 365, Cortana or edge on my desktop. I don't want
to learn how to block them. I don't want to use an OS that feels like it is
being milked for all it's worth in its dying breaths.

~~~
kbenson
It always asks me, and I can delay it. You've actually had it force an update
_right then_ while playing a game, and without having told it "no, delay it"
multiple consecutive times (I believe it will only let you delay it 2-3
times)?

Edit: Also, have you set your active hours? Windows allows you to define the
times you use your system so it won't attempt to update during those times.
Additionally, you can set a specific custom restart time for when it will
restart.

~~~
cloverich
> Edit: Also, have you set your active hours?

I tried to. I play games for a few hours either at night or early am -- say
6pm-1am or 5am-9am are my possible slots. Unfortunately, windows update will
not accommodate this -- you are only allowed to set one window with an 8
(maybe 12) hour max, and it must be consecutive. I had to dig around to find
this, and it still is not sufficient. I ultimately solved my problem by using
the regex editor to convince windows I was on a metered internet connection.
Unfortunately, this broke update all together. I turned it back and now its
still broken -- apparently the magic auto-updater is the only way get updates
-- there's no button I can click to just download the latest update and
install it? (at this point I gave up)

I mean... that's just insane.

~~~
kbenson
What about setting the specific update time to something like 3 AM?

I was just in the windows update settings and there was a way at the top to
check for updates right then. I didn't use it so I'm not sure if there's some
other gotchas involved with that.

~~~
cloverich
I'll have to check that out, thank you for the tip. What I would _really_ like
is a a shutdown button that actually "Check for updates, install if found,
then turn off". I'd click that every time I was done using it.

------
feelandcoffee
In college I brought an iMac to learn edit video in FCP7. It was nice, not
really fast but functional, a lot of my professors were apple fanboys since
the Jobs era. Then came FCPX, even if it's good right now, the first version
released was basically a stab in the back to those video pros who were
faithful to apple for years, those were who keep buying in the hardest times
of the company.

I saw a lot of video professionals jumping to the Adobe Ecosystem or to things
like DaVinci for the GPU rendering.

In my case I ended up selling my mac, and with the money build good PC for the
price. I feel stupid of not building one from the beginning. Good bye external
disks and weird perif; hello SSD, RAID Storage, expandable RAM, and a GPU with
CUDA that I can upgrade in two years, without trashing the rest of the system.

This is not a debate of Mac vs PC (that can go forever), or a PC Master Race
propaganda, but the Mac Pro it's a bad taste joke. I get the idea of the
"apple tax", but it's ridiculous here. The CPUs, SSD, and RAM are old, but
specially the fact that the GPU it's soldered in the Motherboard it's just
stupid. GPU are one of those rare things were you can still see the double of
performance in each new iteration.

I love my Macbook Pro because reasons, but in Desktops, the PC it's the King.

~~~
goblin89
I value a lot the existing versatility of my Macbook Pro, and lament that it
falls short when it comes to 3D rendering in C4D/AE.

However, I’m aware that my case is abnormal. The only thing preventing me from
owning a high-GPU Windows machine for certain kinds of work is that I haven’t
yet figured out how to use it for rendering remotely, since I move around a
lot and I can’t bring it with me due to the bulk. So far I’m just sticking to
2D.

If I were a stakeholder, I’d be against Apple trying to dominate the
professional market. People increasingly have multiple computers for different
tasks so there’s more win in focusing on whichever market has thicker margins.

~~~
Lio
I have an iPhone because it works nicely with my Mac.

You might be thinking "well all phones will work well with your Mac" but
before I started with iPhones I had Nokias for years and that they didn't.

I've had generation after generation of iPhone because of my Macs.

If Apple give up or continue to put out poor value machines (they don't have
to be cheap they just have to be good value to my business) then I'll move
everything to other vendors.

If that happens I'll probably never return to Apple's ecosystem regardless of
which segments of the market are most profitable to Apple.

It's like the halo effect in reverse.

------
iagooar
I think that Apple forget that video pros are also consumers. And their
families. Usually Apple products thrive in families where at least one member
is a professional that uses Macs for work. It just fits the whole idea of an
ecosystem, so these people and their family members have iPhones, iPads, an
AppleTV and maybe an Apple Watch.

Once these people start working on Windows machines, the benefit on an iPhone
is reduced. It's still a great phone, but they might go for an alternative.
Same applies to iPads.

Apple should wake up quick. The extraordinary sales numbers of the iPhone seem
to have made the company live in a bubble where there is just the phones that
matter. But who knows for how long smartphones are going to stay relevant and
if a new piece of technology is going to replace them...

~~~
visarga
In the meantime:

> Apple reports record profits in first quarter

> It was Apple's most profitable quarter ever, raking in $78.4 billion. It
> also sold 78 million iPhones in the three months leading up to New Year's
> Eve — more than any previous quarter.

> Net income was almost $18 billion. In other words, a license to print money.

[http://www.marketplace.org/2017/01/31/tech/final-
note/apple-...](http://www.marketplace.org/2017/01/31/tech/final-note/apple-
reports-record-profits-first-quarter)

So, tell me, why should they make an extra effort? They're good as they are.

~~~
harryf
Designers, developers and gamers have always been the opinion leaders in
personal computing. Apple showed they could maintain and resurrect their
business by keeping their appeal with designers and making an attractive
platform for developers. Gamers always stuck with Windows or consoles.

Abandoning designers and developers means gradual erosion of your position as
leading personal computing platform; the opinion leaders are no longer on your
side telling everyone how great your products are.

Now this might be a really smart strategy when you factor in mobile and cloud
computings impact on personal computing. Hard to say how that will play out.
My guess is it's a big mistake to leave designers and developers behind,
especially as we enter the era of VR content creation.

~~~
johncolanduoni
I think you're significantly overestimating the degree to which people will
follow recommendations that are explained by complaining about features they
didn't even know existed, even if they are much less informed than the one
giving the advice.

~~~
shuntress
When friends ask me "What laptop should I get?" I don't tell them about the
differences between various versions of Visual Studio or why I prefer Windows
7 or 10 over 8.

I just tell them "Get a T-Series Thinkpad"

------
kalleboo
The current Mac Pro design seems like such a massive misstep in product
design, it will be really curious to see if they will walk it back, or just
drop the pro market completely.

I wonder what thinking lead to that product. Did they think the pro market
would be worth it to them to keep investing in keeping the product up to date
and then it turned out not to be worth the investment? Although, even before
then the Mac Pro was only updated sporadically... Was it all just Jony Ive
design hubris? Who is the Mac Pro designed for?

~~~
mozumder
The Mac Pro design itself is great - Xeon CPU, dual GPUs, infinite storage
expandability via Thunderbolt 2.. the problem is that they never upgraded it.
The GPU is 4 years old now, for example.

~~~
kalleboo
Right, you either choose an integrated design, and commit to expending the
resources to keeping it upgraded right there on the bleeding edge, or you
build an expandable machine and let your customers do that work for you.

But even before the integrated Mac Pro, they regularly let it go two years
between updates of the pro model. They must have known when designing the
machine that they wouldn't be keeping it up-to-date and that it would quickly
become obsolete?

Apple also has the issue of trying to align their releases to their PR
schedules. When a component (like a CPU generation) slips, it really messes
with their update cycles (see: MacBooks). This doesn't matter so much to
consumer devices, but pros are more sensitive to this, and letting pros
upgrade their machines mitigates this to some extent.

------
hunvreus
It isn't just video pros.

I've purchased Apple products for 12 years (and for my entire company for 7
years).

It always seemed to be the obvious choice; it just worked, reliably and with a
better user/developer experience than alternatives.

This year both me and my team have started moving away. My next phone will be
an Android device and we're now not buying Macbook laptops for new recruits.

Windows, Ubuntu or Elementary OS offer a better experience. I personally can't
take the restrictions I'm getting from MacOS and iOS. I'm also infuriated to
see my machine being close to unusable a couple times a week while
"kernel_task" eat up 120% of my CPU.

The only reason I was still sticking with Apple was the hardware, but that too
went downhill. The iPhone's screen is brittle. The battery is capricious. My
latest 2 visits to the Apple store resulted in a unusable track pad and a
damaged screen on my Macbook (which were then claimed to not be covered by
Apple Care).

Others around me share my frustrations.

It may be anecdotal, but 3 years ago I would never have considered buying
anything but Apple. I've reached the tipping point and I'm not the only one it
seems.

~~~
sixothree
As much as I have had this love/hate relationship with Apple products over the
last few decades I just cannot bring myself to use a Google phone.

~~~
ryanisinallofus
Just dogma around the phone OS wars or some reasonable explanation?

~~~
fauigerzigerk
Maybe because using Android is a bit like training your dog to guard your
sausages without eating them :)

~~~
phaed
I always see these types of comments, and it seems like they are either
talking from pure bias or outdated experiences.

Flagship android phones are close to flawless not only in hardware but in the
integration with Google services, which are far beyond anything Apple has the
ability to provide. As a Samsung S7Edge owner I simply cannot relate.

~~~
fauigerzigerk
I think you misunderstand. My comment isn't about technical merit.

My point is that using Android means to entrust an advertising company with
access to every last bit of your personal information.

Trying to limit what they can learn about you is what I compared to training a
dog to guard your sausage.

------
touchofevil
The only thing Apple has left going for it at this point in the pro video
market is the ability to encode video using the Apple Pro Res codec, which is
an amazing codec. But other than that, they have totally abandoned the pro
market. Final Cut X was not up to the job of professional editing when
released. The trashcan Mac Pros are terrible for pros because you 1) can't
install internal PCIe cards like BlackMagic Decklink cards 2) can't install
desktop GPUs, 3) Can't install multiple internal hdds. PCs are just so much
cheaper / more powerful / more expandable and Adobe Premiere is basically a
Final Cut Pro replacement. There's not much reason to use a Mac for pro video
anymore.

~~~
bluejekyll
> 1) can't install internal PCIe cards like BlackMagic Decklink cards 2) can't
> install desktop GPUs, 3) Can't install multiple internal hdds

The story was that for this expansion, you'd add external chassis. I'm not a
video person, so I'm curious why this didn't pan out?

~~~
touchofevil
It's true, you could add an external ThunderBolt chassis, but when the trash
can Mac Pro first came out I recall that not many companies were making the
chassis and they were pretty expensive maybe around $1000 from Sonnettech.com
(which was added to the already very expensive Mac Pro). The expansion chassis
prices have dropped now. But the expansion chassis won't allow you to add a
second CPU which is very helpful when compressing video.

~~~
atomical
It would allow you to add a second GPU. The cost of the upgrade would mostly
depend on the cost of the GPU.

~~~
touchofevil
Right, you can add GPUs in the external chassis, but not CPUs. CPUs are
important for compressing video.

------
pasta
It's estimated that there are 20 million developers world wide.

Stack Overflow surveyed that 20% of developers use a Mac.

So lets say there are 4 million developers using a Mac. And lets say they buy
a new Mac every 3 years. Then 1.3 million developers buy a Mac each year.

Apple sold 20 million Macs last year. So lets say 6.5% were developers and 10%
of those developers are complaining about the new Mac series. If I am right
that means that 130 thousand developers are complaining. That's 0.65% of
Apple's customers.

Now I don't believe Apple is stupid. They are in business longer than some
people here are alive.

So I can very much imagine that Apple decided to go for 2% more customers
while losing 0.65% of them while making even more profit.

~~~
golergka
The article was about video editors, but it doesn't chnage the essence of your
point. However.

That little group is power users. New adopters. Influencers. In the late
2000s, if you saw someone using a macbook pro, you knew he was some kind of
professional, and most likely, something "sexy" \- a developer, photographer,
designer... This user base, professionals who care about quality over price,
helped create the Apple company image. They loved Apple products and were
voluntary apple advocates - I know I was. I convinced several friends and
family members to switch to Mac because I sincerely believed that the extra
cost is worth ease of use. And because I'm a power user (in their eyes), they
believed me. And that same company image helped sell iPhones - the main Apple
profit driver.

But now the same high-paid professionals are switching away. "Regular" users
are going to see it, sonner or later; how do you convince them that this
"Apple quality" still exists, when they see the power users trashing it?

~~~
wastedhours
Agree - today's video editors are tomorrow's video editing teachers. Who'll
teach the ecosystem they see and work with best, informing opinion down the
line.

I would be surprised if Apple didn't augment their line up with other power
products in the medium term though.

------
stcredzero
I'm moving to an ASUS laptop with a GTX 1070 GPU. I should be able to do all
of my game development on it, be able to play games and do VR, and keep my old
Macbook Pro around just in case I do any iOS stuff.

~~~
JohnTHaller
The fact that a full-blown Windows gaming laptop with a GTX 1070 in it is
about the same cost as the entry level Macbook Pro (with integrated graphics)
is a good reason to.

~~~
astrodust
In my day to day work the GPU is virtually irrelevant. If you're a game dev
obviously this is different, but most people aren't.

~~~
JohnTHaller
Game dev, video rendering, machine learning, statistical analysis, CAD/3D
work, graphics design, a little cryptocurrency mining on the side, etc, etc.
GPUs are used for a lot more than games.

~~~
stcredzero
Right. "The GPU is irrelevant to my day to day work," is actually saying that
exploiting large amounts of embarrassingly parallel processing is irrelevant.
It's more likely in the medium to long-term, that the relevance just hasn't
been discovered yet.

~~~
JohnTHaller
I was responding to: "If you're a game dev obviously this is different, but
most people aren't." A GPU may not be relevant to you specifically, but it's
relevant to far more people than just game devs.

~~~
stcredzero
Just to clarify: I'm agreeing with you, not disagreeing.

------
redsummer
Tim Cook has just been repainting Jobs's toys for the last five years. Cook's
success is a testament to how good the toys were, but nobody wants Woody and
Buzz Lightyear anymore.

I'm an iOS developer. I'm sure if Apple were making decent machines I would be
more optimistic about my job. But the current situation is making me prepare
for an escape route. I'm sure there are many others who feel the same, and
that will have a knock on effect on the iOS world.

------
dcw303
For a company that understands computers are very similar to fashion (their
SVP of retail was poached from Burberry), they show a disappointing lack of
foresight by not keeping their taste makers happy.

Introducing OS X as _the_ mobile Unix platform of choice on top of the first
ever drop dead gorgeous notebook (The Powerbook G4 Titanium) declared Apple as
_the_ platform for discerning power users. Those power users could confidently
brag about their systems, giving free advertising to non-power users. The halo
effect of which can still be seen today, trickling down to Joe Coffee in your
local cafe. How much longer that lasts in the wake of mis-steps like the touch
bar is questionable though, even in the wake of massive unit sales to the
broader public.

This article is about high end video / graphics users, and workstations are a
slightly different use case. But not much. Once these users move off Mac, who
is going to be left to champion the desktops?

~~~
WayneBro
> ...declared Apple as the platform for discerning power users.

Incorrect. There are plenty of discerning power users who prefer the power of
a good UI over a good CLI. What you meant to say is "for power users who
happen to use UNIX".

Even at peak reality distortion Apple had a whole 6% share of the desktop
market. Just enough to be annoying to the rest of the world. They definitely
never had a monopoly on these so-called "discerning power users".

------
ramigb
I use Windows 10 as my gaming PC, I own two MBPs one for work and one for
personal use, I also make music on both Windows with FL studio and macOS with
Logic Pro X. Lately I've been feeling that Windows 10 is really smooth and
easy to deal with unlike my previous Windows experience so I've started coding
-again- on my Windows and to be honest minus some built in macOS applications
like QuickTime and preview I don't really mind going back to Windows at all,
Unlike Windows 8 or 7 I feel that Microsoft has started listening to users
which is really good.

------
marricks
So they had to switch to Nvidia for their amazing 1080 GPU, makes sense. Guess
I wouldn't blame apple for not appealing to a niche market, as a reply on that
post said they chase big markets and do really well in them.

It's interesting that in some ways Microsoft may be doing the same. They cut
support for older CPUs, they cut a lot of their workforce for QA, and seem to
be focusing too.

It'd honestly kind of cool if they margins reaching specialty users became so
small that they stopped getting supported so Linux fills in the gap. I mean,
the transition is bad, but the end opportunity for Linux and diversity in
general seems good.

~~~
netule
> It's interesting that in some ways Microsoft may be doing the same. They cut
> support for older CPUs

Isn't cutting support for old hardware the exact opposite of what Apple is
doing? These guys are mad because they can't get the latest and greatest
hardware from Apple, not that their obsolete system won't run macOS.

~~~
Clubber
People with the silver 2009 Mac Pros are also mad because Sierra won't run on
it. It will run on a 2010 Mac Pro which is, for all intents and purposes,
identical, except a BIOS version setting. Apple decided 2009 users now has
obsolete hardware. It's only 6.5 years old and mine is from obsolete. 2x4
3.33, 32g, 2x1TBSSD, 2x4TBHDD, USB3, GeForce 970.

------
cdnsteve
When you solder SSDs and RAM into a machines logic board that doesn't exactly
make your very expensive investment future proof. Let alone glue a battery
into the case and the battery life is horrible on my touchbar MacBook Pro.

Apple machines are now appliances that cannot be modified. They are throw
away, so spend your dollars wisely.

------
rayiner
The idea of video pros, programmers, and IT guys being "tastemakers" is
laughable. People used to ask me for computer recommendations 15 years ago,
when specs mattered and computers were scary. Today, people just get a Mac
because their fellow non-technical people have one, or because they have an
iPhone or Apple Watch already.

Indeed in our household it works they other way around: My completely non-
technical wife has prohibited me from buying non-Apple products. ("You know
how whiney you get every time you buy a non-Apple product.")

~~~
bartvk
> "You know how whiney you get every time you buy a non-Apple product"

That's pretty damn cute. I can see why you married her :-)

------
modfodder
As someone who is a video pro, cutting commercials in NYC and LA (and former
post facility engineer), I'm not seeing it. I don't know of one editor or post
facility that has moved from Mac to Windows or Unix. One River Media (the co.
that posted the blogpost about switching) is using Davinci Resolve as an NLE,
a far more niche choice than cutting in FCPX. Resolve is a color correcting
tool (a very popular one that I've used to color grade features) that has
added editing support. I've yet to meet anyone in the wild using it for
editing.

Even the editors I know that cut on Adobe Premiere which is available for both
PC and Mac aren't switching from Mac, which honestly has surprised me a bit
because of the greater choice in hardware. But for most video editors at this
level, you're just trading speed in one area for problems in another. Editors
whine and complain every time there is a tiny change in the interfaces they
use, they hate change. They have been forced to embrace FCP and Premiere over
the years (and complain about it incessantly). Very few will choose to make
the jump to Windows for the same reason.

As you step down the ladder, the move will make sense for some. Your all-in-
one facilities or one man bands (production and all aspects of post handled by
one or two people). But in my experience, this group has already been heavily
invested in the Windows side because of the cheaper initial costs (that money
you save early will be spent later and the Windows post-house will cost as
much or more than a comparable Mac post-house, at least it did when I was an
engineer).

And the other aspects of video post production, the CG, 3D and compositing
sectors already heavily lean toward Windows or Linux and have for over a
decade.

There just isn't a huge need for massive speed increases in the hardware side
for most video editors. We've gone from needing very fast, high end systems
with fast (and expensive) SAN storage to laptops and SSDs that allow us to do
more, faster than ever. iMacs or MacBook Pros are all the average editor
needs, with more and more working remotely from home. I cut a project for the
NBA over the holidays on the first gen USB-C MacBook and years ago cut a
project for REEBOK on the just released MacBook Air. Both these projects came
up unexpectedly while I was traveling but went off without a hitch on
underpowered hardware (that I bought for web surfing and writing).

That's not to say that I wouldn't appreciate (and most likely purchase) a new
and expandable Mac workstation. But for the most part, I'd be spending money
to just spend money. It wouldn't speed up 98% of my job. And that other 2
percent isn't slow enough to cause me any issues.

------
bleair
Does Apple really need or care about the "Pro" market?

It seems like all of their priorities are related to everyday consumers (beats
headphones, air buds, several new phone models every N months, etc.).

Why would apple waste their engineering man-hours building products for any
market except the common consumer who aspires to be part of the wealthy crowd?

~~~
soundwave106
I guess this might be their direction now, but at one time Apple did market
heavily towards creative professionals.

I think this helped Apple's "hip" image among consumers. When you, say, see
your favorite electronic band in concert and notice the Apple logo on their
laptop, that reinforces the impression that these computers aren't "stodgy"
Windows PCs (ala the ads 10 years ago in this direction --
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_a_Mac](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Get_a_Mac))

Many "common" consumers have a creative hobby to be honest as well, and I
think developing pro tools can help develop consumer / prosumer versions. See:
Garageband, a consumer oriented DAW from the folks that made Logic Pro.

------
alkonaut
They aren't stupid - it's entirely possible that Apple have run the numbers
and found it uneconomical to keep pro gear up to date. So they simply give up
the share of the market that contains video pros and similar. Obviously
they'll lose the whole families of those professionals, and perhaps their
whole businesses too - but Apple must have calculated that risk.

So most likely it's simply better business to cater to the consumer/prosumer
part of the market and ignore "true pro" gear.

~~~
jbmorgado
History proves again and again, that yes, big companies - even when they are
presently turning record profit - can be _indeed_ stupid. Very, very stupid.

Thinking that just because a tech company is big and therefore has the
brightest minds there running the products and as such they can't go wrong and
it's us, the users, that just don't understand their fantastic strategies is,
as we can clearly see from the past, just not true.

Just look at Microsoft in the 2000's for instance. Or at Yahoo in the end of
the 90's.

~~~
alkonaut
I'm not saying it's not a mistake but the possibility that it's deliberate
must at lest be considered.

------
JimmyAustin
I dont understand why Apple doesn't offer a clone program for workstation
Macs. Dual socket and above only (so that it doesn't compete with the iMac or
the Mac Mini), restrict it to Intel, but give Dell/HP/custom builders the
opportunity to build the pro systems that don't make much of a profit
themselves, but support the army of content creators for their other devices.

~~~
mrpippy
For everyone who wants Apple to bring back an expandable machine like the old
Mac Pro with dual CPUs, PCIe slots and SATA bays, I think this is the best
plausible scenario.

I still don't think it'll happen though, and even if it did, you'll be paying
Mac Pro prices for a Dell/HP.

------
Fomite
I've begun painfully shifting away from Mac Pros for scientific computing work
as well, which six or seven years ago I wouldn't have believed. But my lab
recently bought a high-end workstation and the MP didn't make sense, and my
current MP is getting a bit long in the tooth and, unless something very
unexpected happens, it's replacement won't be made by Apple.

------
baldfat
I contract for video work from time to time for a few decades now.

Windows has always been the majority of video editing till about 2009 when
Final Cut was the buzz word. I HATE Final Cut and just its vocabulary was so
frustrating. Most were either Premier or some special Linux farm for HUGE
projects. Apple won due to the idea that creatives used Apple and nerds used
Windows. I always was the Amiga guy then the Linux nerd (Light Works is great
but the plug ins are limited)and now I just am happy to not have to use Final
Cut for anything.

------
dcdevito
Has anyone else realized this article is almost a year old? I agree with the
whole macOS exodus, as I was a Mac user of 9 years before switching to PC in
mid-2015 (you know, when it wasn't yet cool to do so). At first I thought I
made a huge mistake, but since then I built a powerful rig last summer and I
love it. Windows 10 is fast, stable and reliable, three words I used to
describe OS X when I switched to Mac in 2006.

As a former developer now Project Manager, I don't code much anymore, but I
tinker with stuff every now and then. I got into gaming for the first time
since I built a custom PC back in 2004, and you know what? I love it! I
thought I was "past that" phase in my life, but I enjoy my Windows 10 Desktop
PC.

I still miss the Mac, and man do I miss the retina screens! But I feel macOS
is simply now a legacy product to Apple that they simply cannot afford to
ditch, not so much for business - obviously that would be bad - but I think it
would be much worse from a PR perspective more than anything. And the whole
thing bothers me. I feel like macOS is now an obligation for Apple to string
along, but its real focus is now iOS. We all know iOS is the future, who are
we kidding? At least with Windows 10 I feel Microsoft is trying to add neat
features and updates annually now, and since mobile passed them by in the dust
they have to scramble desperately to get Windows 10 in the forefront of tech
enthusiasts again. I think for developers it's working (or at least they're
trying very hard). I'm kind of excited for built in VR functionality, ubuntu
core (WSL) seems really promising for developers.

~~~
anjc
Man I'm the same. I ran PCs since the 90s and put my own together through the
00s, but switched over to Apple fully in the late 00s. Having gone back to a
Surface Pro and putting a desktop PC together again in the last year...I don't
know what I was thinking moving away from it.

Windows 10 is amazing, and being able to pick and choose components is
personally very freeing.

------
cxromos
I'm finding problems with the escape key, not the hit/miss which is not a
problem at all, but while coding I like to rest my finger on Escape key on
certain occasions. That's not possible on MacBook Pro Touch. Also have to
adjust that my Launchpad button is now where Siri is by default, next to the
Touch Id Sensor. Everything else is better, touch pad, for which I thought I
won't have use for included. Also, up and down keys are somehow easier to miss
which is strange, probably due to keyboard elevation. As for the keyboard,
finally, this is keyboard. I started developing on Mac as iOS and Android
developer in 2012. Had hard time to get used to gummy MacBook keyboard. Touch
Bar is something keyboard manufacturers in the PC world tried to make for
years ending up with horrible keyboards no developer would touch. Industrial
design is better as well. My 'old' MacBook Pro Retina now seems big and clumsy
(both are 15"). This is the feeling I have when I use it.

------
mayrosedgdotcom
I have been loving ubuntu. I still use windows for games, but I could never go
back to windows for getting work done or running severs

------
ksec
A lot of Pro are also moving from Mac Pro to iMac. Where the current
processing power fits their needs. But Video / CG Pros seems to have infinite
appetite for CPU and GPU processing power, and Apple's line up are not
catering for them.

Not only do I wish they could rethink the Mac Pro trash can, I wish they could
design the Mac Pro with Server Rack in mind.

------
Corrado
I agree that Apple shouldn't be chasing every bit of chickenfeed and producing
lots of similar products. In fact, I would like to see Apple go back to 4 main
macOS products; home desktop, home portable, pro desktop, pro portable.
Getting rid of the MacBook Air/MacBook/MacBook Pro/iPad4/iPad Air/iPad
Pro/iPad Pro2 confusion would go long way to making it possible to recommend
an Apple product to my friends & family.

As it stands now, when someone asks me what computer to buy I have to
interrogate them on their exact usage pattern and then spend a couple of hours
looking at all the different Apple products to see which one might serve them
best. 10 years ago it was simple; you just want to send email, browse Facebook
from home, get an iMac. If you wanted to compile code at Starbucks, get a MBP.
Goofing off at the library, get a MB. Simple.

~~~
simonh
The Apple product line has expanded because their user base has expanded.
They're no longer selling a few hundred thousand Macs to a few categories of
creative professionals. They're selling many millions of them to people all
over the world.

Even so, Apple to this day doesn't chase after every conceivable ecological
niche in the market. They only sell two headless Mac models (ignoring internal
component options). The Airs are likely on the way out, so their clash with
the MacBook is likely just a temporary transitional thing. Many of the
products you listed are actually just different generations of the same thing.

------
frik
What video editing software are you using on Windows?

Adobe Premiere Pro? Avid? something else?

~~~
Joeboy
Personally I edit video in Blender on Linux. But from what I understand, these
days Premier is kind of the default for general purpose, non-legacy video
editing on Windows. Resolve has a free as in beer version that's supposed to
be pretty good.

------
xt00
For the external GPU route on a mac, does anybody know how fast the bus would
need to be? Like could you use two USB-C ports in parallel on the latest and
greatest mac or something??

~~~
na85
The bandwidths can be found via a quick Google search. You'd need something
like 8 usb c ports in parallel, and the CPU overhead would be punitive.

~~~
shurcooL
What about Thunderbolt 3?

~~~
jwatte
We tried a Razer Core on a MacBook but it wouldn't work.

Works great with the Razer laptops though!

(BTW, you can't even buy any Mac with a decent GPU anymore, no matter what the
form factor!)

~~~
nottorp
You can't even _hackintosh_ a Mac with a decent GPU any more, since NVidia
hasn't put out drivers for their 1xxx cards for OS X.

~~~
netzone
Oh, really? Do they have any plans to?

~~~
throwaway2048
No (recent) offical macs are capable of installing a nvidia PCI card

~~~
nottorp
Yeah but a good bunch of the pre-trashcan Mac Pros are still in service. And
those do take PCI Express cards. Apparently NVidia felt it's a market worth
serving, since you can still get Sierra drivers from them for anything before
the 1xxx series.

Okay, the drivers are labeled "for Quadro", but they support basically
everything.

------
JofArnold
What about external GPUs? I wonder if Apple should be doubling-down on that
because it turns even the weakest MBs into incredibly capable machines.

------
Mankhool
I work in a video production facility. We hate the trash cans. 3rd party
chassis for them all fall short of an "all in one solution". These are our
last Macs for production. We'll be on Windows boxes by this time next year. As
a lifelong Apple user (Starting with the Apple II) this makes me sad, but
Apple has done this to themselves.

------
iampliny
Pro was always a stepchild at Apple. Steve Jobs never stopped by NAB for the
Final Cut Pro press events. And more than a decade ago I started seeing middle
managers being "promoted" from Pro Apps to other divisions like iTunes.

The hard truth is that we pro folks aren't that lucrative. Pro users probably
sit in the bottom of a smiling curve with high-volume consumer products on the
one side, and high-revenue Enterprise on the other. To a company like Apple,
pro users represent the worst of both worlds.

That's why you also see "media storage" companies like G-Technologies, who
introduced pro products (like the late G-Speed) only to abandon that market
for high-volume, low-touch consumer products like LaCie Rugged.

I want a new MBP with an nVidia GTX 1080 as much as the next guy, but I'm not
holding my breath.

~~~
rayiner
Let's not forget that long before Apple exited the "Pro" market, companies
like SGI went out of business. So did all the companies that used to make
graphics hardware targeted to pros. They were overwhelmed by ATI and NVIDIA's
repurposed gaming GPUs.

~~~
iampliny
Yep. Tricked-out gaming rigs catching up with the heavy-iron graphics
workstations was hugely disruptive. Low-overhead boutiques could suddenly do
the same work as high-overhead facilities. But then you blinked, and the same
work was happening in no-overhead places like The Director's Living Room.

------
krschultz
Apple should license a single boutique manufacturer to make high quality
workstations. It's clearly not a big enough market to interest Apple, but with
the right agreement in place they could come up with a satisfactory solution.

Signed

\- A Mac Pro owner that is seriously considering getting something else.

------
VeejayRampay
Apple is the Teflon company. It seems like no matter how many subpar (yet
overpriced) products they put on the market, their reputation and public
perception never suffers.

To this day, I have a negative opinion of Microsoft for their questionable
practices in the past and god knows they've been lambasted in the past for
their general attitude (though it feels like this is starting to change).
Apple on the other hand can totally afford to rehash their products from a few
years ago, sit on a stash of gold, disappoint designer and programmers alike
for years, leave Mac OS on a sidetrack and never has to face any kind of
serious backlash.

It really says a lot about their marketing genius.

~~~
johncolanduoni
It also says a lot about the composition of their market: Apple is likely not
super concerned about snubbing professionals because they've moved on to
bigger fish.

I seriously doubt that it simply has not occurred to anyone at Apple that not
providing higher end GPUs and other features that various professions rely on
will mean losing their business. Especially since the internet has been
screaming that at them for a good while now.

------
elif
I am curious if there is a single person that doesn't regret their 2013 mac
pro (trash can) purchase.

I feel like an idiot. I multibox videogames and my $1,000 entry-level
alienware frequently out performs this $5,500 art piece.

~~~
nine_k
I wonder when did $1k machines become entry-level, though.

~~~
kempbellt
When OP added the word "alienware"

------
tibbon
I moved to OS X for Protools circa 2002, when Windows support for it was just
awful. When I build my next studio machine, I think I'm moving back.

I need a machine that is large, powerful, and expandable. The Mac Pro isn't
this.

I don't like Windows, but the only programs I'm going to use are Protools and
Ableton Live. Just like on my gaming computer, which essentially just runs
Steam (and games) I can deal with it.

For live sets, I'll keep using a Macbook Pro, because if one breaks I can buy
another in any city in 5 minutes and I will know it will work almost
immediately for what I need.

------
intoverflow2
Did exactly this in December for CUDA based 3D rendering.

Been a mac user for 15 years. It was hard to make the jump but I came to the
realisation Apple just doesn't care about my work and therefore my money
anymore.

------
intrasight
For those complaining that all PCs have flaws, the great thing about PCs is
that you can build your own. All the parts for my new Skylake Xeon arrived
this week. Can't wait to see what it can do! I'd been waiting for the Samsung
960 Pro 512GB which finally arrived. The 960 Pro is my boot drive. A 960 Evo
1TB is my data drive. No more spinning glass platters for me. Build your own
and you get to make your own compromises.

------
amelius
Apple suffers seriously from NIH syndrome, so they will probably never let
NVidia play a major role in their ecosystem. Too bad, customers move away.

------
tempodox
I found the top comment on the site (from `has`) quite illuminating. I don't
like the message at all but it seems to explain a lot.

~~~
5ersi
I agree on the 'has' comments. The only thing that he got wrong, IMO, is that
Alexa is going to be a success. If personal assistants are to take off it's
going to be inside the phone (the most personal of all devices), not some
speaker in the living room.

Phones are much more available (always with you) and personal (sometimes you
don't want to share stuff with your whole household).

------
randsp
After thinking a lot about buying an iMac for development (I've been using
MacBook Air for five years now), I just decided to forget about it and
consider another platforms as ASUS VivoPC X, it is good looking enough,
incomparable horse power and way too much less expensive. The only thing I am
sure I am going to miss is MacOS.

------
kondro
Video pros need high-end, fast, high-memory machines with fast storage.

99% of us developers don't. Even if you have a lot of VMs.

------
Corrado
Here is a more recent take on the original article -
[http://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-strategy-forcing-pros-
di...](http://finance.yahoo.com/news/apple-strategy-forcing-pros-ditch-mac-
windows-232146389.html)

------
jlebrech
If apple reinvent the IDE for use with touch on ios they might be able to drop
their laptops altogether for development, and maybe market some kind of cloud-
cube that people who want more grunt could purchase, rather than be limited to
what can fit in a 2mm thick laptop.

------
unicornporn
Yup we do. OS X user for 11 year, recently switched to two laptops. One Window
10 laptop for video and photography work, one Linux laptop for the rest.

------
znpy
Windows has improved a recently, and many of those might actually like it.

I guess no one cares at Apple: if the hugest slice of revenue comes from
phones and tablets...

------
jscipione
The performance gap between Apple's latest today and the industries latest is
not nearly as great as in the late PPC era.

------
taude
I was under the impression from friends who work in Hollywood and television
that not much video editing was done on Macs, anyway. That Avid software
running on proprietary/custom hardware was standard. But this was five or six
years ago. Maybe people had been switching to Macs in more recent times? (I
remember a similar discussion came up when Apple consumerized Final Cut, and
was told that pros don't use it anyway.)

------
al2o3cr

        due to the inherent bandwidth limits that Thunderbolt has as compared to the buss speeds of these GPU cards
    

[citation needed]

There probably are applications that need every single GBps of the x16
connector, but just saying "bandwidth limitations" isn't sufficient - see also
the common SLI setup which switches to x8/x8 if two cards are installed.

------
draw_down
Their neglect of the pro market and the Mac Pro continues to be an
embarrassment.

------
astrodust
This is a reblog of the same article from 2016 that's been revivified and is
making the rounds again.

------
dimillian
Yes Apple, it's not rocket science, please stop using 2 years old GPU in your
latest laptop...

------
12fkingheros
with GCE GPU, very little reason to have a local anymore.

------
sneak
ITT: People pretending the world's wealthiest company isn't building a 64 bit
ARM desktop powerhouse.

Why would they continue dumping money into refreshing Intel-based systems when
they screwed them on 32GB of ram in the LPDDR4 thing on the new rMBP?

Can you imagine how annoyed the Apple people are that they can't sell you a
$499 32gb ram upgrade along with your $1299 1500gb SSD upgrade on your $4299
computer?

Apple's future is ARM and to expect any more powerhouse Intel systems from
them was folly even a year ago.

~~~
tomwilson
There's definitely something going on with the Mac Pro - but I don't think
this is it.

~~~
Jenya_
Yes, with imminent AMD Ryzen debut I would be more inclined to believe in the
AMD route for Apple desktops versus ARM route, at least in short-term.

