News - Apple's updates to MacBook Pro, Mac mini and iMac range

[Beetyd]

Great way to make them even more underpowered... there's no way you'd be able to make use of the higher res display (which is a move I am MUCH in favour of!) with that atrocious graphics potential. For something that costs SO MUCH (the Macbook Pro I have through work was SOOOOO expensive), I would really expect them to have better hardware. No gaming on that thing! Also, I would expect these to be as unreliable as all of the macs I have used over the last 5 years: shockingly bad. My current MBP has been back to Apple 4 times in the year I've had it... Certainly wouldn't waste my own money on their overpriced, slow garbage computers, and I'm lobbying work to stop wasting charity money on them, too.

Apple have never looked at the Macs as significant gaming machines. Only iOS have Apple decided to make moves. If you want a gaming laptop- using DirectX Drivers and a decent PC is were it is at. Apple represent a much wider audience, those whom I expect don't use this site very often and much rather something that just works. The fact your machine has broken 4 times since owning is, understandably annoying, but Apple at least have a Genius bar, Express Lane and AppleCare to go to direct.

[Funkstar]

How are the Intel graphics chips when it comes to GPU acceleration? I assume because they are poor at games, they will also be poor in GPGPU applications?

I ask this because the apps that are the foundation of the Macs continued use through all those difficult years will all now make use of GPU acceleration (I'm talking about the Adobe suite as well as the other creative and media powerhouses). So is having a poor GPU in these machines going to mean a real world reduction in performance over their previous models?

Having a "retina" display would have been a big plus to creative types on the go, but are they going to be hampered by a real lack of performance now?

[Barakka]

I'm an Apple user (and a PC user) and use my MacBook Pro for pro audio and video as my job, it's two years old and has been faultless during that time, amazingly reliable and still boots in <10 secs from cold... infinitely easier to get stable than the PC equivalent... BUT....

Bad news again... yet another Apple update with no new MacPRO, and to make things worse they've weakened the iMac by basing it on a laptop and how the hell is a completely non-upgradable laptop with Intel on-board graphics worthy of the MacBookPRO name?

This is just more evidence that the new Apple since Steve Jobs started getting ill a few years back only cares about shifting consumer products in volume and doesn't give two hoots about the pro user market (Pro Audio and Video). What they're forgetting is what Steve knew, that it was the Pro market that meant there was any business there for Steve to rescue when he came back to Apple in the first place. Yes iMacs are nice and shiny, but they're no good in a studio as they've got fans in them, and they're not really upto transcoding and throwing around terrabytes of 1080p video when compared to a dual 6-core XEON MacPRO with 32GB RAM.

Bad News

[Guy]

The last few generations of iMac have all used laptop components, that's nothing new.

Mr Cook confirmed that they haven't forgotten about the Mac Pro, and it'll be receiving some attention next year. Pretty sure this was announced at the Apple WDC a month or so ago.

[spoon_]

Only MBP 13" uses integrated Intel HD Graphics 4000 though, 15" flavour offers dedicated options.

[Agent]

How are the Intel graphics chips when it comes to GPU acceleration? I assume because they are poor at games, they will also be poor in GPGPU applications?

Correct. Intels offers are lacking. You need a nVidia based chip in a Mac if you're seriously looking for GPGPU acceleration.

[Biscuit]

I'm an Apple user (and a PC user) and use my MacBook Pro for pro audio and video as my job, it's two years old and has been faultless during that time, amazingly reliable and still boots in <10 secs from cold... infinitely easier to get stable than the PC equivalent... BUT....

Bad news again... yet another Apple update with no new MacPRO, and to make things worse they've weakened the iMac by basing it on a laptop and how the hell is a completely non-upgradable laptop with Intel on-board graphics worthy of the MacBookPRO name?

This is just more evidence that the new Apple since Steve Jobs started getting ill a few years back only cares about shifting consumer products in volume and doesn't give two hoots about the pro user market (Pro Audio and Video). What they're forgetting is what Steve knew, that it was the Pro market that meant there was any business there for Steve to rescue when he came back to Apple in the first place. Yes iMacs are nice and shiny, but they're no good in a studio as they've got fans in them, and they're not really upto transcoding and throwing around terrabytes of 1080p video when compared to a dual 6-core XEON MacPRO with 32GB RAM.

Bad News

The 'pro' world has been slowly shifting back to PC for a while now. Final Cut X was pretty much the final straw, saw a lot of customers really disappointed with apple when they started forcing that down peoples neck as it basically said, 'we dont want this market anymore'. This was especially the case with the people who had just bought very large SAN based edit systems!

They no longer want pro market because its hard work to keep people happy. Professionals expect an awful lot from suppliers with regards to technical support. The public market is much easier, you throw a cheaply made product out there, tell everyone its great, they buy it. After sales support is more along the lines of telling people to turn it off and on again which makes for a much cheaper team of staff.

[Beetyd]

The 'pro' world has been slowly shifting back to PC for a while now. Final Cut X was pretty much the final straw, saw a lot of customers really disappointed with apple when they started forcing that down peoples neck as it basically said, 'we dont want this market anymore'. This was especially the case with the people who had just bought very large SAN based edit systems!

They no longer want pro market because its hard work to keep people happy. Professionals expect an awful lot from suppliers with regards to technical support. The public market is much easier, you throw a cheaply made product out there, tell everyone its great, they buy it. After sales support is more along the lines of telling people to turn it off and on again which makes for a much cheaper team of staff.

Agreed - There is a lot of demand from Professionals and that is probably why the Mac Pro has not been updated and the server line was halted. I do not think it was Jobs aka Mr 'saviour' late departure that was the cause though, the iMac has always been based on laptop components for example. Steve always talked about the post-pc era, when keyboards and mice were none existant - its all in the Biography. I do not say this because i think Apple is everything for me, I have a PC for Gaming - but I do not think the company have been anything but the vision that steve set out.

[Funkstar]

The 'pro' world has been slowly shifting back to PC for a while now. Final Cut X was pretty much the final straw, saw a lot of customers really disappointed with apple when they started forcing that down peoples neck as it basically said, 'we dont want this market anymore'. This was especially the case with the people who had just bought very large SAN based edit systems!

I'm hoping I'll eventually be vindicated with my assertion that there is no reason why a well built PC cannot be used in a recording studio with a full ProTools set up (including the input boards). I know it can be done, it just isn't done very often.

[Biscuit]

Apparently mac is more stable and easier to use for this kind of work. There is an element of this is some cases; drivers are often a lot more stable for the high end interfaces (or at least at one point this was the case) but its mostly because generally the kind of people who do this sort of work are what the integrators and engineers call 'fluffies'... they just like shiney fancy stuff.

[Barakka]

Good to hear the MacPRO hasn't been completely forgotten if there's an update coming next year.

It's true Final Cut has been losing some ground the past couple of years (with the BBC rumoured to dropping it), and Premiere Pro getting more popular. But there's a long way to go, out of 20-odd jobs i've worked on this year only 2 were edited on Premiere Pro, the rest were FCP - 7 of course

It's possible to make a PC rig as stable as a Mac for running a Pro Tools based studio but you need to do plenty of research to find the right combination of motherboard, CPU, memory, USB/FW Controller, Ethernet chipset etc to put together to ensure the drivers all work well, especially if you also want to be able to run Cubase and/or Ableton etc. When you're already researching monitors, desks, outboard gear, cabling, construction, acoustic treatment, soundproofing.... and a Mac will just work? it's easier to just buy a Mac.

I'm hoping it changes with PT11, AVID are having to re-write from the ground up to get 64bit so hopefully we'll get something much more stable on PC.

[Agent]

Apparently mac is more stable and easier to use for this kind of work.

I can't agree with that. We have several hundred machines (literally) with Adobe products deployed on them both on Mac and Windows at work and neither of them have issues when set up properly.

What issues have you had?

[Biscuit]

I can't agree with that. We have several hundred machines (literally) with Adobe products deployed on them both on Mac and Windows at work and neither of them have issues when set up properly.

What issues have you had?

I deliberately said 'apparently'. Its another case of Apple somehow creating this illusion that their products are superior.

I have never ever had any issues with either platform for adobe, or avid for that matter. I have had some on windows with firewire audio devices.

[Funkstar]

It's possible to make a PC rig as stable as a Mac for running a Pro Tools based studio but you need to do plenty of research to find the right combination of motherboard, CPU, memory, USB/FW Controller, Ethernet chipset etc to put together to ensure the drivers all work well, especially if you also want to be able to run Cubase and/or Ableton etc. When you're already researching monitors, desks, outboard gear, cabling, construction, acoustic treatment, soundproofing.... and a Mac will just work? it's easier to just buy a Mac.

I'm hoping it changes with PT11, AVID are having to re-write from the ground up to get 64bit so hopefully we'll get something much more stable on PC.

This confirms my suspicion that PT was just badly written and not an inherent fault with PCs.

[Biscuit]

This confirms my suspicion that PT was just badly written and not an inherent fault with PCs.

In my experience its more about making sure the audio interface (as protools is deliberately limited to certain hardware for certain versions) wont have any driver conflicts with the rest of the hardware. The other most common problems i have seen have been around firewire (which used to be a favourite for audio interfaces - im sure there is a reason), its implementation in windows isnt great and seems to have conflicts with ethernet drivers/windows network services! Barakka probably has more experience in the nitty gritty than i do though.

[Alicia]

I have expected it for a long time!! bravo...