The Mac Pro (not to be confused with the similarly-named "Macbook Pro") is probably the one Apple product that you haven't heard of, as they haven't released a commercial overhyping it in about four years.
Like the Macbook Pro is supposedly just a Macbook with better specs, the Mac Pro is supposed to be an Apple desktop with better upgradability and specs than the Mac Mini or iMac. In those respects, the Mac Pro is still better. However, Apple has been steadily reducing the frequency at which it updates the Mac Pro, which has lead the products current irrelevance.
Unfortunately, even as the Mac Pros on the shelves age, their price tag does not. The current configuration is over 450 days old and has the same price tag as the day it was released onto the market (which was still hefty even then).
It's my contention that the reason Apple is having a hard time keeping the Mac Pro a decent product is because they've made it something that it shouldn't be: A custom form-factor albatross that nobody buys. This is not a Mac Mini, or an iMac. Nor is it a f**king cube. It's a bulky PC workstation that's supposed to have excellent price/performance in exchange for desk real estate. Instead, Apple's insistance of form over function has resulted in neglect of the line and has made it into a sleek-looking overpriced dinosaur.
The Mac Pro started out as a computer that was CHEAPER than a homebuilt alternative with the same specs. That's why I bought one. Todays Mac Pro is an overpriced over-customized rip-off that even Dell and HP can trounce on price/performance.
The following is something I trolled on a mac fanboy forum... for some reason they agreed:
Once you realize--I mean really realize--that a computer is just a bunch of parts, most of which are not special in any way (and are usually similar in quality), you really get annoyed with brand loyalty.
The difference between the Mac Pro and all other Macs is JUST that it's the only Mac that ignores (or should ignore) form factor.
You pay extra for the portability of the Laptops and the desk-space economization of the Mac Mini or the iMac. However, for the Mac Pro, the only distinguishing characteristic should be PRICE.
Mac Pros use (or should use) STANDARD FORM FACTOR parts, and therefore should be the LOWEST PRICE/PERFORMANCE ratio of the macs, not the highest. They are easy to assemble and use STANDARD parts.
The iMac/Mac Mini have an excuse for being expensive (even though they're not): they use extremely customized parts to fit into their small form factor. The Mac Pro does not. Economics of scale dictate the Mac Pro should be updated more frequently and should be of a higher value (ignoring aesthetics).
IMO, the fact that the Mac Pro isn't being updated and is still using old parts (and thus a worse value) is due to Apples over-customization of the motherboard and case components.
The "New" Mac Pro should have as few custom parts as possible. They should use inexpensive, mass-produced yet high quality components that are already on the market (or at least as much of them as possible). No more gigantic grey case fans, just use a standard 120MM. No more stupid aluminum cages that make it a bitch to swap out the CPU, just an empty box with the mobo screwed to the side-wall and case fans in the back. No more ridiculous [UNRELIABLE] PSU with no label on it, just cut a deal with Thermaltake for an all black 1.5KWatt monster.
Take a standard high-end Intel motherboard, tack on some EFI and design the case around it. Duct tape the thing together and sell it at a reasonable price. You could even stuff it inside a brushed aluminum case with an apple sticker on the side and call it good.
The hilarious part that fanboys don't get is: Apple's parts are lower quality than the consumer computer component market (like stuff out of newegg) that sells for a fraction of the cost. Apple uses SH*T hard drives (Maxtor/hitachi) and SH*T RAM. They use THE WORST DVD burners (Sony). Their video cards are buggy/crappy (Radeon 2600) and outdated. Even their "custom" looking components have mass failure like their PSUs. And by the way, they charge more for it.
It's not entirely their fault. Apple's painted themselves into a corner by making these "sleek" formfactors that require custom parts. The more customized the parts, the smaller the scale of fabrication, and therefore the higher the price to produce and to develop (per unit). It also costs more to engineer (or re-engineer, as they often do), on top of re-certifying everything at every step through the FCC. Their custom cases and PSUs have to be run through the regulators with practically each new revision. I'm suggesting they abandon that model for the Mac Pro and just make an "unsexy" 'PC-style' high-quality, high-value box. It's what pro-sumers really want (high-power/quality, low price), abandons the "Sleekness" that is really extraneous to professionals, and has very little cost to create new revisions. (48,888)
As a avid technical explorer and digital artist I find myself constantly in a sea of upgrades floating by me as I swim my way through life. Everyone loves upgrades, but at what costs?
The good Dr.Roe recently shared his woes and concerns regarding Apple's latest OS: Blow Leopard. But I don't really have much of a beef with Apple this time, unlike the doctor. My problem lies with a little company called Autodesk. You may have heard of them. They originally shared the field of AutoCAD software and decided to buy every major 3D software they could, including the rivals Maya and 3D Max. Now they are pretty much one company to rule them all, charging insanely high dollar amounts for their software. As to every Maya users excitement, Maya 2010 is not only going to sport Autodesk's latest and greatest 3D package but it's flagship Toxik (video compositing) and Matchmover (3D matchmoving) are now bundled with the software. Both Toxik and Matchmover have been excluded as stand alone products. Best of all, it features x64bit builds for Windows Vista/7 and Mac OSX. Unfortunately, despite the fact that Apple has a developers program that allows for development of new software before the launch of an OS did not seem to catch the eye of Autodesk.
Quote:
Maya 2010 is not qualified on Snow leopard as of this release Please do not update your OS as we don’t grantee how Maya will behave We are currently investigating this matter, and as soon as we have an update we will post it on our official site and here as well
Also the SIGGRAPH deadline was coming up, which Autodesk seems is more important to have the next bundle of software out by that month then supporting an operating system that comes out around the same time. (44,048)
With Snow Leopard, I've actually enjoyed starting up and shutting down the computer, as well as logging in and out. -MacfixitThrough a series of brain farts, 10.6 managed to be downloaded and installed onto my Mac this week. With other fanboys writing articles that include inane quips like the one to on the left, I thought I'd post my impressions.
First off: What the hell is the point of this? There is almost no difference between this and the previous OS. I know, all the fanboys are ranting about how it's got more 64bit code. Most of them don't realize that for most programs, 64bit does nothing to enhance performance. There's no reason for iCal, Addressbook, Mail, etc. to have 64 bit support. By the way, fanboys: the 64 bit kernel is turned off by default (apart from in OS X 10.6 server). I'm trying to see the advantage here.
Sure, it's got the ability to offload tasks to the GPU (a feature called OpenCL). Which tasks are we talking about? They didn't upgrade any of the video, audio, or photo software to use this feature, so where's the fuckin beef, man? Do I really give a shit that my file manager (Finder) can list the contents of a directory 5% faster from an already incomprehensibly quick display time?
Well Hell, why don't we just go through the top features from the Snow Leopard Site. Keep in mind, this was created by Apple to spin Snow Leopard into something people want to buy:
Apple Claim:
Translation:
"We ran out of ideas, so we decided to fix our code"
After years of piling on the bloat, Apple decides to actually make the existing programs work the way they're supposed to.
"We realize that the OS X Finder should've been written in cocoa in the first place, but carbon was so retro and cool at the time we just couldn't help ourselves. Better late than never, right? Think different."
64bit: Was already halfway implemented in the previous version. They're just rubbing in the fact that they didn't deliver last time around Central Dispatch: Makes it easier to write multithreaded code… but wait, haven't they had multi-core processors in almost every product over the last 3 years? Shouldn't they sweep under the rug the fact that they'd been ignoring this feature? "Snappier": Are you fucking serious? Fuck. You.
"We changed one line of one piece of code and are overly pumped about it."
All they did was make time machine a higher system priority. Since it backs up every few minutes, having your computer not slow to a crawl due to lack of available hard drive throughput was actually a good thing. Apparently Apple forgot why they'd set it up like that, changed it to a system-halting annoyance, and now I can't seem to open any programs while a time machine backup is going on.
"When we cleaned up our shit that shouldn't have been there in the first place, your computer sped up slightly. Who wants to blow me?"
This is probably the biggest "feature" of Snow Leopard: a slight reduction in boot time. This may save the average user a whopping 10 seconds per day! Forgive me if I'm not super impressed.
"We don't install shit you don't need, therefore it installs faster. It's like fuckin magic n'shit."
Roughly half of the previous OS X installation was literally legacy code for PPC computers. Since Apple switched to Intel in 2006 (yes, 3 years ago), they've had no use for this code, but have included it anyway just so they could someday take it out and pat themselves on the back for removing it.
"Uhhh.. running out of features here, better list this one twice"
Like I said, they took out a bunch of legacy code, therefore the footprint is reduced too. Alakazam!
"We could've just released a free patch for this--our free, cross-platform browser--but we decided to force people to pay for an upgrade."
"We don't include 'Eject' buttons on our computers, so fixing this bug required an entire OS upgrade."
Wait, shouldn't this have been free? I mean seriously.
And while we're talking "Features", let me just introduce this little comparison chart of my own:
Vista SP1 Vs. OS X 10.6
Vista SP1:
Snow Leopard:
Faster?
Bug Fixes?
Free Upgrade?
Total:
WIN!
FAIL!
Normally, when Apple releases a new OS, it's good to wait a couple weeks for all the bugs to float out into the open and maybe even a patch to come out.
I figured that this rule didn't apply to 10.6 because… well it's basically a bunch of bug fixes anyway, why do I need to wait for the first patch full of bug fixes?. . . Famous last words. . .
Here's a list of fun problems I've encountered so far:
LOGOUT FREEZE
The first minute I had it installed and booted, I decided to create a new user account and log out. It froze, with the little progress meter thing hovering over a blank background. This required a hard restart.
TIME MACHINE
Since I did a fresh install, I was wondering about how Time Machine would react. Apparently, not well. At first, it had a permissions problem reading the previous backup. I fixed the permissions, hit "backup now" and IT DELETED THE WHOLE PREVIOUS 700GB BACKUP!!
Okay so that's a pain--maybe I should've seen that coming, right? But wait, there's more. A couple days after it finished backing up again, it came up with this message:
That meant it again refused to read the old backup--which it had created itself--and couldn't create a new one because the old one (still present, of course) was taking up too much space. I tried every fix I could find through google, and again it resulted in it deleting my entire backup AGAIN.
I ended up getting so pissed I just formatted my Time Machine drive. So now, as I write this, it is again backing up. If it fucks itself again, I'm going to resort to some sort of cron job.
SAFARI "SNAPPINESS"
A few minutes ago, I hit Command+T to open a new tab in Safari. The program froze for 2 whole minutes (as seen above).
SPOTLIGHT
Need I say more?
UPDATE 9/18:
I've had no kernel panics in a while, and for the most part, the problems have been resolved (some due to the 10.6.1 upgrade) including Time Machine's screw-ups... Though every few days, TM says it 'cannot create backup folder' and I have to restart, it's no longer deleting 700GB of its own data. It still freezes on logout roughly one out of every 10 times, but I'm usually restarting anyway when it occurs.
On the other hand, some of my longstanding issues with 10.5 have been resolved with 10.6. Plus, since I've been constantly rebooting these days to get in and out of Bootcamp (Windows XP), the quickened boot time is actually kind of useful... though I can't say, as MacFixit did, that 10.6 has in some way made rebooting 'enjoyable'. (58,985)
It's July 11, 2008, and you know what that means: It's the launch of the first major revision to the iPhone since it came out a year ago.
This new iPhone has some new features, all of which should've been included in the original iPhone. However, this one comes with a bonus feature that seems to be very unpopular with anti-Apple philistines.
The original iPhone was sold online, in stores, in bodegas, out the backs of vans, and traded in seedy alleyways for illicit sex acts. It was great: you could buy an iPhone, and do whatever you want with it.
However, some naughty folks decided that what THEY wanted to do with THEIR iPhones was NOT what Apple and AT&T wanted. They had the gall to actually install unauthorized software and use unauthorized carriers on their own unsubsidized phone (which they paid incredible premiums to obtain). This process is called "Jailbreaking"--a term coined by clever busy-bodies to imply that Apple are somehow acting like prison guards trying to control the actions of their users; FLUMMERY!
This made Apple and AT&T very upset. I heard Steve Jobs even cried. Now, people could send text messages and make telephone calls through the internet and these companies wouldn't make any money off it (apart from what they already made when these people bought the phone, or what they paid for cellular internet). These sons of bitches must be stopped.
Apple knows that its loyal customers would do anything to keep certain bad eggs from skirting their rules and so Apple decided that this new phone would have to be sold with a few more caveats.
To buy an iPhone 3G, you must go to an Apple or AT&T retail outlet, verify that you have a contract with AT&T, and activate your iPhone on one of their in-store Macs while a salesperson stands over your shoulder and makes sure you're not bending the rules. You will not leave the store with the item that you just paid for until a salesperson watches you activate it.
Apple and AT&T were more than satisfied with this solution and knew you would be too, so they smugly opened their retail store doors this morning to tens of thousands of smiling patrons eagerly waiting to be treated like obstinate children.
There was just one problem: Apple's activation system was not prepared to deal with the traffic, and immediately slowed to a crawl or a halt. Thousands of would-be customers are waiting in line right now to buy and can't because of Apple's new rules about in-store activation.
So how are people responding? Just listen to this satisfied customer:
Quote:
Kaimac From Macrumors.com: 11am - Go to ATT Store - "Sorry no iPhones for sale, we only had about 40 of them", I go home.
7:45pm - Friend calls from Apple Store in Norfolk saying they still have 16GB White and Black iPhones, no line....get in car and go.
8:30pm - In the store buying two new white 16GB iPhones.
8:35pm - Apple reps says when they try to process my order, ATT has my account locked for no upgrade on iPhone eventhough I'm and iPhone 1 owner. Apple says to dial 611 on my iPhone and have them check their system.
[...]
9:05pm - They Still can't check me through the system at the Apple store, 16GB iPhone blacks are gone and they only have a few 16GB whites left, two of which are sitting in front of me and I can't buy them.
9:15pm - Apple manager comes over and says I have to come back. They take the two 16GB iPhones away from me and sell them to someone else. I leave.
Steve, You have a major problem with this ATTpple business model when I can't go into your stores anymore and buy an iPhone without ATT saying I can. ATT controls this whole buying channel for you and the experience sucks, plain and simple. [...] Seriously, I left with over 650$ of product sitting at the register because ATT had and error in their system and said I couldn't buy YOUR product. What a joke. I won't be back to upgrade to a 3G anytime soon. [...] Service like this will eventually catch up with you, it always does.
Now onto the software updates released today!:
As I mentioned in my 10 Second Review of the iPod Touch, I have recently become the owner of a new iPod Touch. The 'Touch' is basically an iPhone without the cellular capability, and therefore another weapon in Apple's arsenal against their users.
Along side their new iPhone, Apple has released a $10 software update for Touches and Phones which, get this: grants you the privilege of buying 3rd party applications from Apple's store. By the way, Apple admits to collecting 30% of all revenue from all 3rd party applications sold.
What chrome-plated balls these people have.
The Touch update has other features that seem pretty good, plus it probably has some bug fixes, so I sought about updating the thing. However, I don't have $10 in my bank account... so what do I do, then?
Luckily, Apple's full of evil, but not full of evil ingenuity. They accidentally released the update via unprotected HTTP. Apple has since removed the file, but not before thousands of Touch owners downloaded the 200MB update without paying for it.
Pwnt.
With Apple's stock hiccuping and Touch users having dodged the latest Apple-Tax, I must say it's not a good day for Mr. Jobs. Let's hope he doesn't throw a tantrum and make OSX10.6 a mandatory upgrade to be released tomorrow. (37,429)
Here is my review:
Touch screen keyboarding sucks.
Uses proprietary headphone jack (so only Apple headphones).
Web browsing is slow as hell, even with a perfect connection.
Can't install my own apps without hacking into the stupid thing.
The screen is nice though.
Verdict: Unless it's free, get an iPod Nano, save $100. (50,956)
So Apple announced more details today about its upcoming OS, version 10.6. Versions 2, 3, 4, and 5 have all been $130 for new or current users (no discount for upgrades).
Though they haven't explicitly said so, it's likely 10.6 (AKA "Snow Leopard--no joke) will again force users to pay to upgrade, or be left behind.
The worst part is, about 6 months after the every OS X release, 3rd party software updates start rolling out which act kind of funky on the previous release. Just like with Windows, you have to upgrade because your software stops working. However, other software wont work with the new OS version, sometimes requiring a paid incremental patch just to even open the program. Just a reminder from before: you pay for this experience. What a deal.
Here's a quick rundown of the versions so far:
10.0 - Unusably slow, a total embarrassment, a laughingstock
10.1 - Same thing but barely usable, Apple was forced to give the upgrade away for free to make up for the previous version
10.2 - Hardware accelerated GUI, finally making it okay to use for non-trust fund babies who have all day to waste and the fastest Powermac
10.3 - Added Expose (the fast app/window switching), also bug fixes and speed improvements
10.4 - Added Spotlight (fast searching) and more bug fixes
10.5 - Time Machine (backup software) and a heap of bloat.
As you can see, every version so far has brought something to the table. Sometimes it's a little light, like with 10.2/3, but generally, the "Apple tax" yielded something for the money.
With Apple's upcoming "Snow Leopard" release, they've stopped even pretending that they've got ideas. Their new OS offers built in M$ 'Exchange' support (which 90% of users wont ever know is there), along with multicore and 64bit support that's supposedly better than 10.5. That's it. That's all they've got for us.
Keep in mind, 10.5 has great multicore support already, and can handle up to 4TB RAM, which is probably good enough for the next 7 years or so (the "best" Mac you can own right now can be CTO @ 32GB of RAM, at a cost of $11,800).
So what's 10.6 really have? Bug fixes and bloatware cleanup. Why are we paying for something that should already be there? Well hell, I wont get into that, but let's just say it's annoying. This is like having to pay for an XP service pack or something. Not even M$ does this shit.
Oh, and as a bonus, Apple is most likely dropping support for PPC (all macs made before 2006 some made as late as 2007, including G4 & G5).
So I went on Macrumors Forums today to see the word on the street. Guess what I found? The fanbois are out in force--defending Apple.
Check out this classic post:
"I think it's AWESOME they're charging me to clean up their bloated horse-shit. Can I pre-order a year in advance? I keep my credit card in my descending colon, why don't you reach in and grab it for me!"
He even loves Alter Bridge. It doesn't get any more real than this. (35,517)
Okay I decided I'd talk about the new Psystar fake Macintosh.
I've been a Mac user long before I got into the IT business, which means I hated Mac, because as a kid, all my friends could play these cool games and all I could do was productive things like edit video, program, view porn, etc.--all of which could be done on a PC. I actually learned all the "incredible" things I now know for lack of anything better to do because I owned a Mac (and No, it wasn't worth it).
Now that I'm older and hopefully wiser, I still use Macs because of the OS. It's got a very secure hodgepodge of stolen open source software at its core (which they call Darwin), making it extremely solid and versatile. The current version of Windows was from-scratch in the late 1990's. UNIX (which is what darwin is based on) has been in development since 1979.
I say this with all honesty and not as a fanboy: OS X, at its core, makes Windows look like a fucking joke. Don't believe me? Try running two different video cards made by two different vendors. I don't mean Intel, either, I mean accelerated--just one of a gajillion things that actually works on Mac like it should on Windows. Oh, PS, how's that Vista DRM working out for you?
There are reasons I use OS X over *nix, too. There's the UI... but who cares? It also has MS office, photoshop, and all that cool stuff that EVERYONE in my field (or former field, I guess) uses. It'll be a wonderful world when *nix gets any decent multimedia or productivity software, but that is not the world we live in today. Seriously, you think I like paying this much for hardware?? I'd much rather use something free than not free.
Another truism is that Macs are overpriced and their hardware lock-in is how Apple makes all their money. It's not just the systems themselves, it's also the fact that upgrading it is a royal pain.
Apple and Apple fanboys persistently proclaim that the reason for Apple's "amazing" hardware experience is the fact that they control the hardware vendors. That claim is a bunch of shit.
Apple's "user experience," from a hardware glitch standpoint, is very similar to that of any Dell or Compaq. They make the same mistakes, and now they even use the same hardware, so there's no way anyone can claim that there is a quality difference between Dell and Mac hardware.
As far as mistakes go, let's name a few: For starters, the 2600XT video card that Apple uses in their aluminum iMac line (current, as of this post) caused terrible (yet trippy) display problems even outside of gaming, leading to complete freezes requiring hard-restarts. Apple sent out a software patch a week or two later which presumably fixed the problem but really probably clocked down the GPU and modified the video drivers. Not good enough? Well they turned around and included the same flawed card in their flagship "Professional" line, the Mac Pro. Guess what? Same issues: Lockups, heat problems, coma (inability to wake from sleep).
Then there was the issue with the 6800 Ultra driver not being placed on the OS install/maintainence DVD prior to 10.3.5; which basically means if you bought the card, you couldn't boot off any earlier version of the OS, including the install CD that came with your computer. That means if your hard drive died, guess what? You can't replace it (unless you took certain steps, which I ended up writing an article about which was featured on most Mac tech websites at the time).
With Apple in control over every single part that goes into their computers, they should know exactly what's going on and should have tested everything thoroughly. How can these issues slip through the cracks when there are so few items to test? More than likely, Apple throws together the hardware packages a couple months before release based on profit margins rather than quality. I would not be surprised if ATi had a glut of 2600XT chips they wanted to get rid of and cut Apple a deal to clear their stock (because PC users, who have a choice in these matters, wouldn't use such an underpowered, overpriced, bug-prone GPU). Moreover, when issues like this arise, they don't bother contacting their customers. Nobody from Apple bothered saying anything about any of the aforementioned problems, when they could've sent out an email or had Software Update pop up a message about it. Not a peep, which is probably why many Mac users still think their machines are immune to problems. Now, even Mac Rumors rarely publishes serious issues with Apple hardware.
Let's get back to Psystar, shall we?
Psystar is a company that has released a $400 PC which is capable of running OS X with very little alteration of the OS. The PC has better technical specs than that of a Mac Mini (Apple's least expensive Mac) and is $200 cheaper. Mac fanboys are going crazy over this, saying 1) people who buy the computer are going to be sued by Apple. 2) The computer cannot be updated through Apple's "Software Update" application 3) something about how the computer is a POS, even though it has the exact same hardware.
1) No, nobody will get sued by Apple except for maybe Psystar. I'm sure Apple doesn't want to enter a battle they can't win on this issue, and it may be that Psystar is legally in the clear. The buyers of the machine, however, have nothing to fear legally.
2) Actually, unless Apple designs their updates specifically to break these machines (which they may, in time), they'll be fine after an update, they just can't do it automatically.
3) Like I said, the hardware is the same, it's just sold for cheaper. In fact, it's better, in a way, because you can put any video card you want in the thing, including an 8800GT. A cheap Mac that can play games too? WOW WHAT A CONCEPT!
Psystar also sells other models, some of which are almost as powerful as Apple's "pro" line and cost far less than an iMac (mid-range).
I certainly don't blame Apple for screwing their customers out of their beer money. That's the job of any good corporation. My problem is with these Apple nuts holding Apple's standard up like Jobs is the second coming. Anything mentioning Apple as something other than a 'visionary beacon of goodness in the land of evil and complicated computer gadgetry' is just ignorant tripe and obviously Microsoft FUD™. Grow up you mongrels. Hell, who am I talking to, that line about "overpriced" probably just cut the daily hits of this website in half, we're down to 4 and a half now, right? Anybody? (40,530)
Share
Once you realize--I mean 
That meant it again refused to read the old backup--which it had created itself--and couldn't create a new one because the old one (still present, of course) was taking up too much space. I tried every fix I could find through google, and again it resulted in it deleting my entire backup AGAIN.
It's July 11, 2008, and you know what that means: It's the launch of the first major revision to the iPhone since it came out a year ago.
There was just one problem: Apple's activation system was not prepared to deal with the traffic, and immediately slowed to a crawl or a halt. Thousands of would-be customers are waiting in line right now to buy and can't because of Apple's new rules about in-store activation.
I recently got an iPod "Touch" for free.
