Apple at WWDC: Sleek new iOS, death of the big cats, pint-sized Mac Pro

What's so hot about internally upgradeable Mac Pro?

What matters is not whether it is internal or external expandable - only that it is EXPANDABLE.

I have a fully loaded Mac Pro 3,1 (early 2008) and it is maxed out. I have 4 monitors, two graphics cards - which left one slot left over for a eSATA controller - no more slots left.

The new Mac Pro (as far as I can figure out) can still handle my four monitors, and has a lot more expansion options -- up to 36 external devices at the speed faster than my current bus operates. I gather from your tone that you would still be upset at the loss of the parallel port, the serial port, the 5 1/4 and 3 1/4 floppy drive..... as long as what replaces it is the same or better - I really don't care - I don't want my floppy back :o

If I can't put a Red Rocket card in it, it's as much use as an ashtray on a motorbike.

And PCIe expansion via TB? Kludgey mess of cables and crap, connected by dodgy consumer-grade connectors. No thanks.

Similar issues for other cards people rely on - Kona, high-end sound cards etc. etc.

I dare say many, perhaps most, pros don't use the expansion slots.

But Apple just just totally killed those of us for whom they're absolutely essential. You CAN'T grade & edit 5K raw footage in real time without the Rocket accelerator card! Likewise for things like the Kona video card - although AJA have a new TB2 external Kona box on the way - but it's still a nasty kludgey solution. And even TB2 is NOT close to being the equal of PCIe 16x lanes, so external PCIe boxes aren't the solution. They've crippled the thing, all for a snazzy form factor. Unprofessional.

This is Apple kissing goodbye to a lot of serious motion picture / post-production work. Some of the critical tools - Redcine-X and CS6 - are already available on Windows. FCPX isn't, but then Apple already screwed up FCPX so badly that it's barely relevant any more.

You have to be able to upgrade graphics cards to support new features in programs. Especially true with Video Editing.

Well for example, if you are working on video, you probably need lots and lots of fast local storage. Solid state is obviously fast, but no where near big enough to store many hours of uncompressed video from which you will put together your movie. Would you rather get a load of external Thunderbolt drives and plug them into the back of your machine, or get a load of the fastest 3 or 4 TB internal drives you can find and put them inside?

Cool is what Apple do...

And work is what workstations do. The clue is in the name. The only Mac desktops I ever came close to liking were the big-ass towers, because when I'm doing work (on a workstation, of course) then I want a big ass workstation I can modify to my requirements as and when necessary. If my work changes in such a way that I need a new component, I shouldn't have to pay over the odds for a Mac-specific one and trail cables over my desk.

Re: Let me get this straight...

>Unix has never been cool or uncool - it's a professional tool and is 'cool-factor' exempt.

Garth in Wayne's World 2 would beg to differ.

Garth: That's a UNIX book.

Girl: Yeah.

Garth: Cool.

Re: Just one more thing...

@An0n C0w4rd

If you really can't afford $7/week to keep the Thunderbolt display in your depreciation schedule, you aren't the demographic that it is aimed at. Alternatively join the race to the bottom of the market, or enjoy your new career in the fast food industry.

Re: Just one more thing...

I'm saying it's inevitable Apple will have some 4K displays to launch with this thing; it would be really dumb to release this saying 'it supports multiple 4K displays - but we don't have any'. So what's the story? Where are they? Will they be the 'one more thing'?

Re: Just one more thing...

Sure it is interesting for the rest of us. Anything that increases sales of 4K monitors causes them to be made in larger quantities, which brings down the price for those of us who might be willing to pay a few hundred dollars extra for one, but not willing to pay a few thousand extra.

The idea that Apple may start selling the first mass market 4K monitor excites me, even though I will not be buying one, because it will spur a long overdo increase in resolutions for monitors. Say what you will about Apple and Retina, but they pushed things in the small device market to the point where even a $100 Android phone now ships with a resolution better than any phone anywhere had before the iPhone 4 shipped.

Apple didn't "invent" high resolution screens, but they purchased enough of them that they spurred the industry into providing them at cheap price points more quickly than they otherwise would have. I'm eager for them to do the same with desktop monitors, which have been stuck at 1920x1080 (with a big jump higher for 2560x1600) forever, even as freaking PHONES get that same 1920x1080 resolution in a 5" screen!

Re: Mac Pro is now Mac Pro minus

@tempemeaty

"Oh and if they say take it to a Mac store, no, a studio can't do that."

Just curious - why not?

Re: Nitpick

"...taxes paid..."

Really?

The USA and other Western nations would do well to impose a minimum 25% tax, with credit for any taxes paid anywhere else. The hook can be the US stock exchanges. Profit can be as reported.

It's not when they came out, it's when they stopped selling them.

"When did the iPhone 3GS and iPad 1 come out? That's right, 2009 and 2010"

When did they stop selling the 3GS? That's right 2012.

The iPad 1 only lasted a year so 2011.

Yup, old as the hills, no one is going to be using an iPhone that's almost a year old!