For whatever reason the link to the actual configuration page is conspicuously absent on the article. On the one hand I'm really happy to see Apple catering to professionals once again, but on the...
On the one hand I'm really happy to see Apple catering to professionals once again, but on the other hand, the apple tax is more insane than ever. You can easily build a ryzen-based PC for half the price with double the cores of the base model, and things like $400 for casters is absurd.
Honestly? The whole "build an equivalent Ryzen PC" is an overblown take. Jason Snell (of Six Colors) sums it up the best. This is a machine for Pixar, RED, and other specific corporate customers....
Exemplary
Honestly? The whole "build an equivalent Ryzen PC" is an overblown take. Jason Snell (of Six Colors) sums it up the best.
When released in March 1990, the base configuration of the Mac IIfx cost $9,000, which is $17,930 today. (The Mac Pro's base config is $6000.)
Pro workstations have always been absurdly priced, because they aren't priced based on how consumers buy things. Nothing says tech fandom like being outraged about a product that was not made for you.
This is a machine for Pixar, RED, and other specific corporate customers. That's it. They don't build Ryzen PCs from parts—so the comparison doesn't really make sense.
A lot of the "prosumer" market might consider buying this if the markup was lower. I recently helped a friend of mine build a Ryzen 3950x system with 64gb ram, 1tb nvme, and a 2080ti for GIS work....
A lot of the "prosumer" market might consider buying this if the markup was lower. I recently helped a friend of mine build a Ryzen 3950x system with 64gb ram, 1tb nvme, and a 2080ti for GIS work. Total price was around $4000, and he gets double the cores at a higher clock, double the ram at a higher speed, quadruple the storage, and a much better video card, for a third less money. I understand it's a premium product not aimed at the average consumer, but the markup is insane. $400 to put wheels on the bottom of it is a slap in the face.
I still don't think you're getting it. Your head is in the spec sheet, when you need to look beyond that. These are companies that usually depend or have invested significant institutional...
I still don't think you're getting it. Your head is in the spec sheet, when you need to look beyond that. These are companies that usually depend or have invested significant institutional knowledge in having a macOS-specific workflow, have no time to build products, are after Apple support as an insurance policy, and probably don't want to invest resources in figuring out if the Pro Display XDR can fit into their custom Ryzen build—because let's be honest, that's the primary star of this machine, even if it's not included in the base build.
This machine is, ironically, the most cost effective choice for a lot of production studios. Even fully specced out at $52k, that's significantly less than the annual salary of the professional who's going to be using the machine, and a rounding error in terms of the financial value that professional can produce with their work, once it's amortized over 2-3 years. The economics are totally different to anything consumers or prosumers can envisage or understand, usually—which is why it's not targeted at prosumers. The economics do not add up for them.
I do agree their should be a prosumer standalone 5K display though. And not just the shitty LG-branded one Apple sells.
That's true. I'm looking at the value of the parts inside the box they're selling. If they're imbuing it with magic pixie dust that's worth a 300% markup, I'm not seeing it. So, apple is able to...
I still don't think you're getting it. Your head is in the spec sheet, when you need to look beyond that.
That's true. I'm looking at the value of the parts inside the box they're selling. If they're imbuing it with magic pixie dust that's worth a 300% markup, I'm not seeing it.
These are companies that usually depend or have invested significant institutional knowledge in having a macOS-specific workflow
So, apple is able to get away with charging several times market value because they have these companies locked in. I get that. I'm just saying it's absurd the amount they're able to mark this hardware up. I also get that they don't care if they're alienating potential buyers, I'm just remarking at the sheer scale of their premium.
have no time to build products, are after Apple support as an insurance policy, and probably don't want to invest resources in figuring out if the Pro Display XDR can fit into their custom Ryzen build
They don't need to build it or support it themselves. Dell, HP, IBM etc all make workstations and offer service contracts. These companies can somehow afford to do business in the professional market without charging $400 for wheels. They can somehow offer a $2000 CPU for $2500 and not go out of business. Apple is charging an extra $7000 on top of base price for a CPU whose MSRP is $3000.
because let's be honest, that's the primary star of this machine, even if it's not included in the base build
I agree, the monitor is beautiful, and is affordably priced for what it is, stand notwithstanding.
I'm not saying it's absolutely a bad deal in every situation, or that I don't understand how anyone could buy it. I'm saying the apple tax is absurd. The sheer amount of the markup is crazy. They're charging triple because they have a locked-in ecosystem of professionals who have a sunk cost and can't change their workflows. "Wow" is all I'm saying.
While I disagree, and won't reply to your points because we know this is going nowhere, I will say: I think our little conversational dance has been a beautiful demonstration of cost proposition...
Exemplary
While I disagree, and won't reply to your points because we know this is going nowhere, I will say:
I think our little conversational dance has been a beautiful demonstration of cost proposition versus value proposition. Some people care about value, others care about cost. Making people who don't share the same cares reconcile their opinions is nearly impossible. This is what makes the timeless Mac vs PC debate go round and round.
Yes. That’s exactly it. When you have millions of dollars of product (or billions in the case of Pixar) that depends on a Mac OS workflow, $20,000 for a computer is nothing. You’d lose more than...
So, apple is able to get away with charging several times market value because they have these companies locked in.
Yes. That’s exactly it. When you have millions of dollars of product (or billions in the case of Pixar) that depends on a Mac OS workflow, $20,000 for a computer is nothing.
You’d lose more than that in productivity time to retrain people on a new OS or workflow.
That still seems to be the case for at least some of their work. It's actually surprising how much Disney has open sourced their tools and data. This site goes into the details of how they...
That still seems to be the case for at least some of their work. It's actually surprising how much Disney has open sourced their tools and data.
This site goes into the details of how they accomplish a lot of their animation. I recall reading some papers from presentations they've done at SIGGRAPH and was surprised to find out they use Blender for a lot of stuff.
That said, they do maintain an open-source software deployment package for MacOS called munki so it stands to reason they use Macs for at least some of their workflow.
You're spot on. Since transitioning to x86, the only reason MacOS can't run on commodity hardware is that Apple takes extreme measures to prevent it... because that's their only distinguishing...
You're spot on.
Since transitioning to x86, the only reason MacOS can't run on commodity hardware is that Apple takes extreme measures to prevent it... because that's their only distinguishing feature that lets them charge insane markups on hardware.
This isn't even close to accurate. There are several hardware-specific advantages that come with owning Apple hardware. And even though the conversation is about the Mac Pro, it's still possible...
because that's their only distinguishing feature that lets them charge insane markups on hardware.
This isn't even close to accurate. There are several hardware-specific advantages that come with owning Apple hardware. And even though the conversation is about the Mac Pro, it's still possible to get mildly low-cost Macs—cheaper still if you buy w/an education discount or refurbished (to Apple's exceedingly high standards).
Since transitioning to x86, the only reason MacOS can't run on commodity hardware is that Apple takes extreme measures to prevent it
This is a mildly fallacious argument, but even if I take it at face value, it's not like this is the only instance of something like this: Windows 10 on ARM exists, and similarly, you cannot install it willy-nilly on any ARM series of hardware. Getting Windows 10 ARM on a raspberry pi is just about as difficult as it is to get macOS on commodity hardware, with similar levels of poor driver support, frustrating hacks, and dubious legality.
The real question is, is it worth Apple's time working to get macOS working on the gigantic spectrum of all levels of quality of commodity hardware? No, not really. They'll never recoup the cost of developing and testing macOS for the scores of hardware available, for what will wind up being—at best—a compromised experience. It's much easier to ship an OS that just works on their hardware.
Regarding the links you provided (Win 10 ARM on Pi and macOS on commodity), I personally think they actually support my point. Win 10 ARM was Microsoft re-compiling (and modifying) Windows for a...
There are several hardware-specific advantages that come with owning Apple hardware.
I'm not going to do a deep dive on this, but a quick review of the article and the linked store page shows precisely 1 piece of Apple-specific hardware: a $2,000 addon (Afterburner card).
Regarding the links you provided (Win 10 ARM on Pi and macOS on commodity), I personally think they actually support my point.
Win 10 ARM was Microsoft re-compiling (and modifying) Windows for a completely different hardware platform, and the site you linked is a community effort to build the drivers for it. They're making pretty quick progress, considering its a community effort.
The link to running macOS on commodity hardware.....That's basically the same 6 required steps to install any operating system from a blank hard drive. The only parts that are significantly different from an average Windows or Linux OS install are:
UEFI/BIOS settings - This is purely because Apple is actively working to prevent macOS from being installed on other hardware.
Lack of NVIDIA drivers - Yea, that'll happen. But odds are it's NVIDIA who suppliesng these drivers, not Apple.
This is astounding. We're talking about a closed-source operating system being ported to unsupported hardware....and it mostly works. If Apple wanted to, they could be as widespread as Windows within 2 years.
But I'm not suggesting that Apple would or should want to release their OS to other hardware. Of course they have no reason to, not so long as they can charge very high premiums on hardware. But the only reason they can charge the prices they do is because of software lock-in.
$1000 is not even mildly low cost, especially considering how well MacOS will run on that hardware. No computer at that cost should rely on a mechanical hard drive, let alone a Mac where it's...
$1000 is not even mildly low cost, especially considering how well MacOS will run on that hardware. No computer at that cost should rely on a mechanical hard drive, let alone a Mac where it's constantly pulling up previews and thumbnail caches. At least the MacBook starts with an SSD, but that is such a tiny space! The last time I checked Dell's catalog they didn't even sell SSDs smaller than 256GBs.
Given that low cost computers tend to be Chromebooks nowadays, Apple's iPad lineup is a better competitor.
At the risk of going meta—is this going to happen on every thread about Apple that gets posted on Tildes? Deimos locked the last one because it devolved into the typical wide-sprawled "Apple-bad...
At the risk of going meta—is this going to happen on every thread about Apple that gets posted on Tildes?
Deimos locked the last one because it devolved into the typical wide-sprawled "Apple-bad vs. Apple-good" debate with little relevance to the initial topic at hand.
There's a level of criticism that Apple users apply that makes debate fun and interesting. The kind of thing you see between Gurman, Snell, Gruber, Mossberg, and Siracusa, for example. But it gets frustrating when Apple detractors who are nearly completely against the platform or company inject their opinion. The nuance of the debate gets lost and broadens into the typical internet clusterfuck discussion around the company, just with more words and less flamebaiting. I'm not advocating for silencing of opinions here, but maybe there needs to be a ~tech.apple group.
Because it seems to be impossible to have a reasonable discussion about the platform and ecosystem here, frankly.
Yeah, I honestly don't really know what to do about it. For some reason, there are a lot of people who consider it really important to criticize anything Apple does, even though it's not going to...
Yeah, I honestly don't really know what to do about it. For some reason, there are a lot of people who consider it really important to criticize anything Apple does, even though it's not going to affect them at all because they already have no interest in Apple products and no interest in changing that.
A major part of the issue is that both the pro-Apple and anti-Apple people seem unable to ignore the "other side". It takes (at least) two people for these arguments to continue indefinitely, and it wouldn't be nearly as bad if some of the people that tend to get involved in it would just learn to walk away from unproductive arguments instead of keeping the bickering going until I need to force it to stop.
I'm obviously pro-Apple, but I'd love a place to discuss the design aesthetic of the Mac Pro exterior in a vacuum, without things devolving into a cost/"this is dumb" rodeo showdown; or loading...
I'm obviously pro-Apple, but I'd love a place to discuss the design aesthetic of the Mac Pro exterior in a vacuum, without things devolving into a cost/"this is dumb" rodeo showdown; or loading kext files onto macOS without interjections of "AAPL doesn't let you do what you want".
If people want their own Android, Windows, SysAdmin or whatever group, I'm more than happy to let them have that and I won't interject my opinions there. I don't have enough time in my day to discuss negative things that I don't care about and do my day job.
This high-level warring is getting old in the tooth though. I'm posting things with good faith because I want to have those sorts of discussions, not start flamebaiting wars.
I think Tildes is still too small for splitting a group off to be effective, since unless the group was "hidden" by default everything would just end up in front of the same users anyway, and...
I think Tildes is still too small for splitting a group off to be effective, since unless the group was "hidden" by default everything would just end up in front of the same users anyway, and hiding it by default would probably mean there wouldn't be anyone there.
I haven't thought through it at all, but I wonder if there's some way to use labels. Neither of "Noise" or "Offtopic" really seem right when someone is just complaining about the topic, but maybe something like "Negativity" that could be used to allow people to filter out those comments or something? I'm not sure.
I definitely see the same pattern that emdash is, and understand the frustration and disappointment they must feel knowing that they can't have an actual discussion about something they're...
I definitely see the same pattern that emdash is, and understand the frustration and disappointment they must feel knowing that they can't have an actual discussion about something they're interested in on a site that's intended for discussion. I'd certainly like a Negativity label as separate from malice for this kind of thing, though a lot of what I'm seeing here verges on trolling and thus I've been using Malice instead.
... though this seems like a technical solution to a social problem, and we all know how well those work.
You're correct, ~hobbies.automotive demonstrated this well. I'm certainly not asking for this at the moment, but it'd be nice to see when the site gets a bit more diverse. Appreciate you chiming...
I think Tildes is still too small for splitting a group off to be effective
You're correct, ~hobbies.automotive demonstrated this well. I'm certainly not asking for this at the moment, but it'd be nice to see when the site gets a bit more diverse. Appreciate you chiming in in this thread.
Not sure about 'negativity' as a tag, it seems too... negative? Maybe "argumentative" or some kind of 'heated' metric needs to be available. It'd also be cool if you could train a small machine learning model to detect intensely-debated conversations (strong nesting, back and forth responses in quick time frames, and tit-for-tat quoting would be good heuristics to train against) and then negatively weight them to push them down-thread.
Please no. A thousand times no. I don’t want any kind of machine learning or algorithm anywhere near Tildes. Keep that dehumanizing trend-disease far away from me. It has no place here and no...
It'd also be cool if you could train a small machine learning model to detect intensely-debated conversations (strong nesting, back and forth responses in quick time frames, and tit-for-tat quoting would be good heuristics to train against) and then negatively weight them to push them down-thread.
Please no. A thousand times no. I don’t want any kind of machine learning or algorithm anywhere near Tildes. Keep that dehumanizing trend-disease far away from me. It has no place here and no place in human interactions.
The problem is social. People have strong opinions and can’t control themselves regarding them. Using whizbang tech isn’t going to solve the problem (and will create more in many cases). It’s a social problem and needs a social solution.
I try to avoid getting involved in these sorts of arguments, because they rarely seem constructive (even in the indirect "convince third-party readers" sense); but in general, I consider it...
I try to avoid getting involved in these sorts of arguments, because they rarely seem constructive (even in the indirect "convince third-party readers" sense); but in general, I consider it "really important to criticize anything Apple does" because every other manufacturer can't resist copying them and so every time Apple does something I consider stupid, I'm now stuck with that stupidity becoming market-wide within a few years.
And it's your right to hold that opinion; but just as it's considerate not to walk into a board games meetup and tell people board games are dumb, don't join an Apple hobby community and tell us...
And it's your right to hold that opinion; but just as it's considerate not to walk into a board games meetup and tell people board games are dumb, don't join an Apple hobby community and tell us they suck/are stupid.[1]
1. Not that ~tech is an Apple hobby community, in your defence, but it would be rude to do so in a ~tech.apple
I think some sort of top-level reminder on posts with sensitive topics/tags might assist in this regard. This is going to happen whenever there is a topic with people who have wildly different...
I think some sort of top-level reminder on posts with sensitive topics/tags might assist in this regard. This is going to happen whenever there is a topic with people who have wildly different viewpoints, and clashes will happen.
If pro-Apple folks want a space to discuss Apple products without input from people outside the ecosystem... there's already a place for that: Any number of Apple-specific forums on other websites. Someday when tildes is larger, it could facilitate in-group discussion via subgroups, but until that happens, everyone needs to adjust their expectations accordingly.
Part of having a general purpose discussion website is to insure discussions like this remain civil even if viewpoints are unshakeable.
Perhaps a "time out" micro-ban of like 4 hours on a specific post (not site-wide) for any parties that are clearly just bickering instead of discussing.
Honestly, basically any Apple centric forum of reasonable size ends up with a bunch of trolls and haters. So it’s not really even unique to Tildes. There’s a subculture among techies that makes a...
Any number of Apple-specific forums on other websites.
Honestly, basically any Apple centric forum of reasonable size ends up with a bunch of trolls and haters. So it’s not really even unique to Tildes. There’s a subculture among techies that makes a hobby out of finding reasons to be pissy at Apple.
Meta post, meta reply: I understand where you're coming from....in some ways it's like if I crashed every Windows-specific thread with "Just stop using Windows and use Linux instead." I agree that...
Meta post, meta reply:
I understand where you're coming from....in some ways it's like if I crashed every Windows-specific thread with "Just stop using Windows and use Linux instead." I agree that it is nice to have nuanced debates about your specific platform.
However, especially when talking about hardware releases, Apple does not live in a vacuum. It is reasonable to see the specifications of the hardware that they are offering, compare and contrast against comparable hardware and price points. The OP of this thread made a good-faith criticism of Apple's pricing. When I posted, nobody else was supportive of this viewpoint. My reply was an agreement, and an explanation for why the Apple tax keeps increasing. My intent was not to derail conversation. That's why I replied where I did...it made more sense to reply directly to the thread starter and not to the subsequent chains that others made, or starting a new thread.
The OP of this thread made a very reasonable, polite criticism, and got a bit barraged for making that criticism. I validated that criticism (although not as well worded admittedly), and it too spawned a fairly massive sub-thread.
Thus far I haven't seen one Apple supporter attempt to start their own separate thread to discuss the merits, excitement, or plans regarding this article....merely latching onto the one criticism and trying to disprove it. Trust me....I get it. I get passionate in political discussions and keeping it civil and productive can be hard.
If you don't want to argue a criticism, because you don't feel it will be productive....let it go. Don't vote for it, don't respond to it. Collapse it and start a new thread with what you want to say about the topic, and have the reasonable discussion you want in a new thread. Let the community decide with their votes whose thread has the most merit.
I think people outside the Apple ecosystem simply have more to criticize, because they can't see the value the Apple offers with the complete package. That being said, by creating a subgroup...
I think people outside the Apple ecosystem simply have more to criticize, because they can't see the value the Apple offers with the complete package. That being said, by creating a subgroup you're not going to avoid that kind of discussion because you're on a board which is already niche and has quite a few IT heads in it. And people like that usually do not like Apple because they love doing shit their own way, which is not something Apple (you're holding it wrong) respects. The fact that whatever Apple does, the market follows, often makes people like that even more bitter, cause they can avoid Apple, but they'll have difficulties avoiding whatever new change they made once everyone copies it. Case in point: The headphone jack.
I hate making this comparison, because both subreddits are a complete joke, but there is certain isolation provided by having r/apple separate from r/technology on Reddit. Just how like people who...
I hate making this comparison, because both subreddits are a complete joke, but there is certain isolation provided by having r/apple separate from r/technology on Reddit. Just how like people who aren't participating in Advent of Code aren't going to go into that subgroup on Tildes.
This makes me believe strongly there's merit in the idea of having an Apple-hobby-focused sub-group. It didn't work out for ~hobbies.automotive simply because of lack of numbers, but it is kind of the eventual point of nested groups here. Or at least, that's my understanding of it.
I don't get upset about Mac Pro pricing because I'm obviously not the target group. I buy MacBook Pros, though and recognize some of those "upgrade" prices. I simply don't get why jumping from a a...
I don't get upset about Mac Pro pricing because I'm obviously not the target group. I buy MacBook Pros, though and recognize some of those "upgrade" prices. I simply don't get why jumping from a a 256GB SDD (which is hilariously small for this beast of a machine) to a 1TB SSD is +$400. I understand these are probably some super neat SSDs but are they really leagues above a 970 EVO Plus 1TB which is like $200? Are they charging $300 for someone sticking that thing in the case? Why does the price for bigger ones jump exponentially, then?
No matter how you look at it, it seems like a rip-off. I totally get paying for the design and service, totally. But that should be a flat price, with hardware additions at least slightly resembling real-world component prices, even at a +20%, +30%, I would understand. But we're talking like +200%/+300% pricing, here.
Testing. Quality assurance. Support. The ability to walk into any Apple store anywhere, play around with any device (occasionally breaking them!), ask employees questions, and so on. No other...
Why does the price for bigger ones jump exponentially, then?
Testing. Quality assurance. Support. The ability to walk into any Apple store anywhere, play around with any device (occasionally breaking them!), ask employees questions, and so on. No other vendor has a retail presence like Apple does. Before services exploded as a new source of revenue (the iTunes Store helped, but was negligible small compared to iPhone sales), retail was the major source of Apple's income.
Your argument doesn't make sense. SSDs aren't set aside to play with, and reputable manufacturers like Samsung offer a similar level of testing, QA, and support.
Your argument doesn't make sense. SSDs aren't set aside to play with, and reputable manufacturers like Samsung offer a similar level of testing, QA, and support.
But that doesn’t explain the even more insane jumps for the higher capacity models. Again, I get design/service/QA. But it doesn’t make sense here. That shouldn’t be a function of hardware cost.
But that doesn’t explain the even more insane jumps for the higher capacity models. Again, I get design/service/QA. But it doesn’t make sense here. That shouldn’t be a function of hardware cost.
Sure, the costs are ridiculous. ... but that misses the point for a lot of people buying Apple. It's not like buying a Windows machine (or buying a Windows machine and putting some kind of...
Sure, the costs are ridiculous.
... but that misses the point for a lot of people buying Apple. It's not like buying a Windows machine (or buying a Windows machine and putting some kind of freeware Unix / Linux on it, or assembling same from parts) that stands more or less in isolation from the rest of your devices; buying Apple means buying into macOS, buying into the Apple ecosystem. That's why I'm surrounded by Apple devices. That's why I stick with macOS despite having strong open source leanings. I care about the software because freeware Unix doesn't do what I want (and Windows certainly doesn't).
I can easily build a ryzen-based PC but then I'd have to use Windows or some freeware Unix as a GUI and I'd hate every minute of it.
I'm a long time Mac user, and I absolutely appreciate their software and ecosystem, but I still come out of every interaction with them feeling like I got screwed over. Sure, they only sell...
I'm a long time Mac user, and I absolutely appreciate their software and ecosystem, but I still come out of every interaction with them feeling like I got screwed over.
Sure, they only sell hardware that competes at the most expensive end of the market - fine, I'll accept that, I'm happy to pay a premium for build quality. Add 20-30% even above comparable high end hardware? Fine, you're maintaining a more niche OS and doing a great job of it, I'll take the hit for that.
Then it comes to the part where they start penny pinching on the basics (that $100 power brick? They don't even include a 50¢ USB cable), gouging on things that should have been included from the start (you want adequate memory and storage on your $2k+ professional laptop? Sure, that'll be a 300% markup on retail prices), and suing anyone who even tries to compete (goodbye, local repair shops).
It's frustrating; they can and do compete and win on quality, but then they burn all that goodwill by wringing their loyal customers like a sponge.
The cheapest 100-watt capable type-C cable I found on Amazon is $8.99. It is annoying that Apple doesn't throw it in with the charging brick, but it's not a 50¢ cable either.
The cheapest 100-watt capable type-C cable I found on Amazon is $8.99. It is annoying that Apple doesn't throw it in with the charging brick, but it's not a 50¢ cable either.
I was going for the amount it would cost Apple to include it, rather than the retail price, but I'll readily admit that it was a guesstimate! Having checked, it was fairly easy to find a bulk...
I was going for the amount it would cost Apple to include it, rather than the retail price, but I'll readily admit that it was a guesstimate!
Having checked, it was fairly easy to find a bulk option for 90¢ - and, in a prime example of the penny pinching I'm talking about, that's actually a significant step up from Apple's own sold-separately cable! The one on AliBaba is a proper 10GBps USB 3.1 model, whereas Apple are currently charging a significant premium for a cable that's USB 2 only.
For whatever reason the link to the actual configuration page is conspicuously absent on the article.
On the one hand I'm really happy to see Apple catering to professionals once again, but on the other hand, the apple tax is more insane than ever. You can easily build a ryzen-based PC for half the price with double the cores of the base model, and things like $400 for casters is absurd.
Honestly? The whole "build an equivalent Ryzen PC" is an overblown take. Jason Snell (of Six Colors) sums it up the best.
This is a machine for Pixar, RED, and other specific corporate customers. That's it. They don't build Ryzen PCs from parts—so the comparison doesn't really make sense.
A lot of the "prosumer" market might consider buying this if the markup was lower. I recently helped a friend of mine build a Ryzen 3950x system with 64gb ram, 1tb nvme, and a 2080ti for GIS work. Total price was around $4000, and he gets double the cores at a higher clock, double the ram at a higher speed, quadruple the storage, and a much better video card, for a third less money. I understand it's a premium product not aimed at the average consumer, but the markup is insane. $400 to put wheels on the bottom of it is a slap in the face.
I still don't think you're getting it. Your head is in the spec sheet, when you need to look beyond that. These are companies that usually depend or have invested significant institutional knowledge in having a macOS-specific workflow, have no time to build products, are after Apple support as an insurance policy, and probably don't want to invest resources in figuring out if the Pro Display XDR can fit into their custom Ryzen build—because let's be honest, that's the primary star of this machine, even if it's not included in the base build.
This machine is, ironically, the most cost effective choice for a lot of production studios. Even fully specced out at $52k, that's significantly less than the annual salary of the professional who's going to be using the machine, and a rounding error in terms of the financial value that professional can produce with their work, once it's amortized over 2-3 years. The economics are totally different to anything consumers or prosumers can envisage or understand, usually—which is why it's not targeted at prosumers. The economics do not add up for them.
I do agree their should be a prosumer standalone 5K display though. And not just the shitty LG-branded one Apple sells.
That's true. I'm looking at the value of the parts inside the box they're selling. If they're imbuing it with magic pixie dust that's worth a 300% markup, I'm not seeing it.
So, apple is able to get away with charging several times market value because they have these companies locked in. I get that. I'm just saying it's absurd the amount they're able to mark this hardware up. I also get that they don't care if they're alienating potential buyers, I'm just remarking at the sheer scale of their premium.
They don't need to build it or support it themselves. Dell, HP, IBM etc all make workstations and offer service contracts. These companies can somehow afford to do business in the professional market without charging $400 for wheels. They can somehow offer a $2000 CPU for $2500 and not go out of business. Apple is charging an extra $7000 on top of base price for a CPU whose MSRP is $3000.
I agree, the monitor is beautiful, and is affordably priced for what it is, stand notwithstanding.
I'm not saying it's absolutely a bad deal in every situation, or that I don't understand how anyone could buy it. I'm saying the apple tax is absurd. The sheer amount of the markup is crazy. They're charging triple because they have a locked-in ecosystem of professionals who have a sunk cost and can't change their workflows. "Wow" is all I'm saying.
While I disagree, and won't reply to your points because we know this is going nowhere, I will say:
I think our little conversational dance has been a beautiful demonstration of cost proposition versus value proposition. Some people care about value, others care about cost. Making people who don't share the same cares reconcile their opinions is nearly impossible. This is what makes the timeless Mac vs PC debate go round and round.
Yes. That’s exactly it. When you have millions of dollars of product (or billions in the case of Pixar) that depends on a Mac OS workflow, $20,000 for a computer is nothing.
You’d lose more than that in productivity time to retrain people on a new OS or workflow.
Pixar uses Linux workstations, last I heard.
https://www.nytimes.com/2002/06/18/business/technology-disney-shifting-to-linux-for-film-animation.html
That still seems to be the case for at least some of their work. It's actually surprising how much Disney has open sourced their tools and data.
This site goes into the details of how they accomplish a lot of their animation. I recall reading some papers from presentations they've done at SIGGRAPH and was surprised to find out they use Blender for a lot of stuff.
That said, they do maintain an open-source software deployment package for MacOS called munki so it stands to reason they use Macs for at least some of their workflow.
That link is nearly two decades old. Pixar generally employs Macs for their graphics & animation team.
You're spot on.
Since transitioning to x86, the only reason MacOS can't run on commodity hardware is that Apple takes extreme measures to prevent it... because that's their only distinguishing feature that lets them charge insane markups on hardware.
This isn't even close to accurate. There are several hardware-specific advantages that come with owning Apple hardware. And even though the conversation is about the Mac Pro, it's still possible to get mildly low-cost Macs—cheaper still if you buy w/an education discount or refurbished (to Apple's exceedingly high standards).
This is a mildly fallacious argument, but even if I take it at face value, it's not like this is the only instance of something like this: Windows 10 on ARM exists, and similarly, you cannot install it willy-nilly on any ARM series of hardware. Getting Windows 10 ARM on a raspberry pi is just about as difficult as it is to get macOS on commodity hardware, with similar levels of poor driver support, frustrating hacks, and dubious legality.
The real question is, is it worth Apple's time working to get macOS working on the gigantic spectrum of all levels of quality of commodity hardware? No, not really. They'll never recoup the cost of developing and testing macOS for the scores of hardware available, for what will wind up being—at best—a compromised experience. It's much easier to ship an OS that just works on their hardware.
Regarding the links you provided (Win 10 ARM on Pi and macOS on commodity), I personally think they actually support my point.
Win 10 ARM was Microsoft re-compiling (and modifying) Windows for a completely different hardware platform, and the site you linked is a community effort to build the drivers for it. They're making pretty quick progress, considering its a community effort.
The link to running macOS on commodity hardware.....That's basically the same 6 required steps to install any operating system from a blank hard drive. The only parts that are significantly different from an average Windows or Linux OS install are:
This is astounding. We're talking about a closed-source operating system being ported to unsupported hardware....and it mostly works. If Apple wanted to, they could be as widespread as Windows within 2 years.
But I'm not suggesting that Apple would or should want to release their OS to other hardware. Of course they have no reason to, not so long as they can charge very high premiums on hardware. But the only reason they can charge the prices they do is because of software lock-in.
$1000 is not even mildly low cost, especially considering how well MacOS will run on that hardware. No computer at that cost should rely on a mechanical hard drive, let alone a Mac where it's constantly pulling up previews and thumbnail caches. At least the MacBook starts with an SSD, but that is such a tiny space! The last time I checked Dell's catalog they didn't even sell SSDs smaller than 256GBs.
Given that low cost computers tend to be Chromebooks nowadays, Apple's iPad lineup is a better competitor.
At the risk of going meta—is this going to happen on every thread about Apple that gets posted on Tildes?
Deimos locked the last one because it devolved into the typical wide-sprawled "Apple-bad vs. Apple-good" debate with little relevance to the initial topic at hand.
There's a level of criticism that Apple users apply that makes debate fun and interesting. The kind of thing you see between Gurman, Snell, Gruber, Mossberg, and Siracusa, for example. But it gets frustrating when Apple detractors who are nearly completely against the platform or company inject their opinion. The nuance of the debate gets lost and broadens into the typical internet clusterfuck discussion around the company, just with more words and less flamebaiting. I'm not advocating for silencing of opinions here, but maybe there needs to be a ~tech.apple group.
Because it seems to be impossible to have a reasonable discussion about the platform and ecosystem here, frankly.
Yeah, I honestly don't really know what to do about it. For some reason, there are a lot of people who consider it really important to criticize anything Apple does, even though it's not going to affect them at all because they already have no interest in Apple products and no interest in changing that.
A major part of the issue is that both the pro-Apple and anti-Apple people seem unable to ignore the "other side". It takes (at least) two people for these arguments to continue indefinitely, and it wouldn't be nearly as bad if some of the people that tend to get involved in it would just learn to walk away from unproductive arguments instead of keeping the bickering going until I need to force it to stop.
I'm obviously pro-Apple, but I'd love a place to discuss the design aesthetic of the Mac Pro exterior in a vacuum, without things devolving into a cost/"this is dumb" rodeo showdown; or loading kext files onto macOS without interjections of "AAPL doesn't let you do what you want".
If people want their own Android, Windows, SysAdmin or whatever group, I'm more than happy to let them have that and I won't interject my opinions there. I don't have enough time in my day to discuss negative things that I don't care about and do my day job.
This high-level warring is getting old in the tooth though. I'm posting things with good faith because I want to have those sorts of discussions, not start flamebaiting wars.
I think Tildes is still too small for splitting a group off to be effective, since unless the group was "hidden" by default everything would just end up in front of the same users anyway, and hiding it by default would probably mean there wouldn't be anyone there.
I haven't thought through it at all, but I wonder if there's some way to use labels. Neither of "Noise" or "Offtopic" really seem right when someone is just complaining about the topic, but maybe something like "Negativity" that could be used to allow people to filter out those comments or something? I'm not sure.
I definitely see the same pattern that emdash is, and understand the frustration and disappointment they must feel knowing that they can't have an actual discussion about something they're interested in on a site that's intended for discussion. I'd certainly like a Negativity label as separate from malice for this kind of thing, though a lot of what I'm seeing here verges on trolling and thus I've been using Malice instead.
... though this seems like a technical solution to a social problem, and we all know how well those work.
You're correct, ~hobbies.automotive demonstrated this well. I'm certainly not asking for this at the moment, but it'd be nice to see when the site gets a bit more diverse. Appreciate you chiming in in this thread.
Not sure about 'negativity' as a tag, it seems too... negative? Maybe "argumentative" or some kind of 'heated' metric needs to be available. It'd also be cool if you could train a small machine learning model to detect intensely-debated conversations (strong nesting, back and forth responses in quick time frames, and tit-for-tat quoting would be good heuristics to train against) and then negatively weight them to push them down-thread.
Please no. A thousand times no. I don’t want any kind of machine learning or algorithm anywhere near Tildes. Keep that dehumanizing trend-disease far away from me. It has no place here and no place in human interactions.
The problem is social. People have strong opinions and can’t control themselves regarding them. Using whizbang tech isn’t going to solve the problem (and will create more in many cases). It’s a social problem and needs a social solution.
I try to avoid getting involved in these sorts of arguments, because they rarely seem constructive (even in the indirect "convince third-party readers" sense); but in general, I consider it "really important to criticize anything Apple does" because every other manufacturer can't resist copying them and so every time Apple does something I consider stupid, I'm now stuck with that stupidity becoming market-wide within a few years.
And it's your right to hold that opinion; but just as it's considerate not to walk into a board games meetup and tell people board games are dumb, don't join an Apple hobby community and tell us they suck/are stupid.[1]
1. Not that ~tech is an Apple hobby community, in your defence, but it would be rude to do so in a ~tech.apple
I think some sort of top-level reminder on posts with sensitive topics/tags might assist in this regard. This is going to happen whenever there is a topic with people who have wildly different viewpoints, and clashes will happen.
If pro-Apple folks want a space to discuss Apple products without input from people outside the ecosystem... there's already a place for that: Any number of Apple-specific forums on other websites. Someday when tildes is larger, it could facilitate in-group discussion via subgroups, but until that happens, everyone needs to adjust their expectations accordingly.
Part of having a general purpose discussion website is to insure discussions like this remain civil even if viewpoints are unshakeable.
Perhaps a "time out" micro-ban of like 4 hours on a specific post (not site-wide) for any parties that are clearly just bickering instead of discussing.
Honestly, basically any Apple centric forum of reasonable size ends up with a bunch of trolls and haters. So it’s not really even unique to Tildes. There’s a subculture among techies that makes a hobby out of finding reasons to be pissy at Apple.
Meta post, meta reply:
I understand where you're coming from....in some ways it's like if I crashed every Windows-specific thread with "Just stop using Windows and use Linux instead." I agree that it is nice to have nuanced debates about your specific platform.
However, especially when talking about hardware releases, Apple does not live in a vacuum. It is reasonable to see the specifications of the hardware that they are offering, compare and contrast against comparable hardware and price points. The OP of this thread made a good-faith criticism of Apple's pricing. When I posted, nobody else was supportive of this viewpoint. My reply was an agreement, and an explanation for why the Apple tax keeps increasing. My intent was not to derail conversation. That's why I replied where I did...it made more sense to reply directly to the thread starter and not to the subsequent chains that others made, or starting a new thread.
The OP of this thread made a very reasonable, polite criticism, and got a bit barraged for making that criticism. I validated that criticism (although not as well worded admittedly), and it too spawned a fairly massive sub-thread.
Thus far I haven't seen one Apple supporter attempt to start their own separate thread to discuss the merits, excitement, or plans regarding this article....merely latching onto the one criticism and trying to disprove it. Trust me....I get it. I get passionate in political discussions and keeping it civil and productive can be hard.
If you don't want to argue a criticism, because you don't feel it will be productive....let it go. Don't vote for it, don't respond to it. Collapse it and start a new thread with what you want to say about the topic, and have the reasonable discussion you want in a new thread. Let the community decide with their votes whose thread has the most merit.
I think people outside the Apple ecosystem simply have more to criticize, because they can't see the value the Apple offers with the complete package. That being said, by creating a subgroup you're not going to avoid that kind of discussion because you're on a board which is already niche and has quite a few IT heads in it. And people like that usually do not like Apple because they love doing shit their own way, which is not something Apple (you're holding it wrong) respects. The fact that whatever Apple does, the market follows, often makes people like that even more bitter, cause they can avoid Apple, but they'll have difficulties avoiding whatever new change they made once everyone copies it. Case in point: The headphone jack.
I hate making this comparison, because both subreddits are a complete joke, but there is certain isolation provided by having r/apple separate from r/technology on Reddit. Just how like people who aren't participating in Advent of Code aren't going to go into that subgroup on Tildes.
This makes me believe strongly there's merit in the idea of having an Apple-hobby-focused sub-group. It didn't work out for ~hobbies.automotive simply because of lack of numbers, but it is kind of the eventual point of nested groups here. Or at least, that's my understanding of it.
I don't get upset about Mac Pro pricing because I'm obviously not the target group. I buy MacBook Pros, though and recognize some of those "upgrade" prices. I simply don't get why jumping from a a 256GB SDD (which is hilariously small for this beast of a machine) to a 1TB SSD is +$400. I understand these are probably some super neat SSDs but are they really leagues above a 970 EVO Plus 1TB which is like $200? Are they charging $300 for someone sticking that thing in the case? Why does the price for bigger ones jump exponentially, then?
No matter how you look at it, it seems like a rip-off. I totally get paying for the design and service, totally. But that should be a flat price, with hardware additions at least slightly resembling real-world component prices, even at a +20%, +30%, I would understand. But we're talking like +200%/+300% pricing, here.
Testing. Quality assurance. Support. The ability to walk into any Apple store anywhere, play around with any device (occasionally breaking them!), ask employees questions, and so on. No other vendor has a retail presence like Apple does. Before services exploded as a new source of revenue (the iTunes Store helped, but was
negligiblesmall compared to iPhone sales), retail was the major source of Apple's income.Your argument doesn't make sense. SSDs aren't set aside to play with, and reputable manufacturers like Samsung offer a similar level of testing, QA, and support.
But that doesn’t explain the even more insane jumps for the higher capacity models. Again, I get design/service/QA. But it doesn’t make sense here. That shouldn’t be a function of hardware cost.
Sure, the costs are ridiculous.
... but that misses the point for a lot of people buying Apple. It's not like buying a Windows machine (or buying a Windows machine and putting some kind of freeware Unix / Linux on it, or assembling same from parts) that stands more or less in isolation from the rest of your devices; buying Apple means buying into macOS, buying into the Apple ecosystem. That's why I'm surrounded by Apple devices. That's why I stick with macOS despite having strong open source leanings. I care about the software because freeware Unix doesn't do what I want (and Windows certainly doesn't).
I can easily build a ryzen-based PC but then I'd have to use Windows or some freeware Unix as a GUI and I'd hate every minute of it.
I'm a long time Mac user, and I absolutely appreciate their software and ecosystem, but I still come out of every interaction with them feeling like I got screwed over.
Sure, they only sell hardware that competes at the most expensive end of the market - fine, I'll accept that, I'm happy to pay a premium for build quality. Add 20-30% even above comparable high end hardware? Fine, you're maintaining a more niche OS and doing a great job of it, I'll take the hit for that.
Then it comes to the part where they start penny pinching on the basics (that $100 power brick? They don't even include a 50¢ USB cable), gouging on things that should have been included from the start (you want adequate memory and storage on your $2k+ professional laptop? Sure, that'll be a 300% markup on retail prices), and suing anyone who even tries to compete (goodbye, local repair shops).
It's frustrating; they can and do compete and win on quality, but then they burn all that goodwill by wringing their loyal customers like a sponge.
The cheapest 100-watt capable type-C cable I found on Amazon is $8.99. It is annoying that Apple doesn't throw it in with the charging brick, but it's not a 50¢ cable either.
I was going for the amount it would cost Apple to include it, rather than the retail price, but I'll readily admit that it was a guesstimate!
Having checked, it was fairly easy to find a bulk option for 90¢ - and, in a prime example of the penny pinching I'm talking about, that's actually a significant step up from Apple's own sold-separately cable! The one on AliBaba is a proper 10GBps USB 3.1 model, whereas Apple are currently charging a significant premium for a cable that's USB 2 only.
Also glueing and soldering parts for no reason.