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WWDC - Worldwide Disappointment Conference 2023


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Apple haven't known what to do with the Mac Pro since Steve died. The new M2 Mac Pro is an overpriced M2 Mac Studio... unless hell freezes over and we get some NVIDIA drivers (for the overpriced Mac Pro only). This thing is a pathetic joke, and the punchline is Bootcamp is dead. RIP to booting into Windows 10 in target disk mode... Looks like buying a 13th gen Intel CPU with a 40-series GPU is the new Mac Pro / Bootcamp (that will absolutely smoke anything from Apple). Apple don't care about real time hardware accelerated ray tracing, NVIDIA, Unreal Engine, Twinmotion... or their pro 3D users. Get a PC.

 

Meanwhile the new M2 Mac Studio continues to kick butt. Now with a HDM1 2.1 port for widescreen resolutions (5k, 6k, 8k). That said, with limited I/0 and zero expansion, you'll still probably want to connect to an external display via Thunderbolt, so you can use its USB ports as a hub for other peripherals.

 

And for the foreseeable future, the M2 MacBook Pro looks like the best daily driver for VW. Wish it had hardware ray tracing but... Apple.

 

Curious to see what a M3 MBA 15" delivers... Might pair nicely with a desktop PC.

 

The iMac is sad but not forgotten.

 

Hoping Tim Apple will finally retire, and hand over the reigns to someone with VISION (no pun intended). I miss Apple Computer.

 

ScreenShot2023-06-05at12_53_28.thumb.png.e7cf5128cab30f5f7075b9c8987811bd.pngScreenShot2023-06-05at12_53_38.thumb.png.5c04455e9f9e7cf347df3694821307f8.png

 

Edited by Mark Aceto
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 think the keynote could have been much worse .....

 

Even the new prices of the Mac Studio here a quite steep.

I do not get the Mac Pro price vs Studio too.

Or the SSD/RAM upgrade prices.

 

Presentation time for our most interest of Mx Hardware felt

like 30 seconds vs hours for "important" features like "Stickers"

and such.

(Weren't "Live Photos" in the past already embarrassing enough ?)

 

A usable base config for a 3D/CAD Mac Pro would be 9000-10000 €

here. But it misses the main feature, easy and reasonble priced SoC/logic

board upgradability.

No GPU insertion cards, not even from Apple, no "swap RAM" extension slots, ....

 

While Mac Studio is still somehow a stop gab Trash Can.

Far away from the "Workstation" cheese graters many of us may wished to

invest larger amount of money.

 

 

And with AR and real time rendering, most think that M2 architecture is still

even more a stop gap than just performance wise and expect to M3

finally getting RT accelerators, which should come a year later anyway.

 

So better go with a price reduced M1 Studio as another stop gap machine,

wait for a 27" iMac M2 Max, to get at least a screen and some input devices ?

Wait another full year (I basically wait since 2012) for M3 ?

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I sound like a broken record: all we wanted to do was stick a 13900HK and a 4090 into the 2019 Pro, and have the best of all worlds. Just like we could with the OG cheese grater. It was so freaking easy. And that would have opened up development for Windows-only apps and plugins.

 

Here's the thing: we've all been strung along this annual cycle from one WWDC to the next. "This year's gonna be the year... This year will be different... " Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me for nigh on a decade, shame on me. At this point, I have no faith in hardware ray tracing or NVIDIA support as long as Tim Apple is steering the ship (Gil Amelio deep cut for the longtime Apple heads). Not getting my hopes up until Crook's gone. Not even for M3. They'll courageously innovate a way to screw it up.

 

On the plus side, the maxed out 2023 Mac Pro is 75% cheaper than the maxed out 2019 Mac Pro. And the maxed out 2023 Mac Studio is 25% cheaper than that.

 

3 hours ago, zoomer said:

While Mac Studio is still somehow a stop gab Trash Can.

 

The Trash Can was the stopgap between the Cheesegrater and the Mac Studio.

 

keanu-spoon.gif.97939c00bde75c63d433c5f10c447ec1.gif

 

Edited by Mark Aceto
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45 minutes ago, zoomer said:

Even the new prices of the Mac Studio here a quite steep.

 

The new M2 Mac Studio spec'd exactly the same as my M1 is the exact same price.

 

My only hope (for any other users shopping for a Studio) was that there would be a 96gb memory option to save a few bucks. I've found 128gb to be overkill for my needs. 96gb would be perfect (just enough headroom). Then again, 3 years from now, 128 will be the new 96, so it's probably for the best (future proof).

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From my switch to Mac in 2007 ....

(or for friends and family since 2002 !)

I bought a lot of Macs until 2012.

And these were all machines that I was 100% confident and exited.

Over all and price reasonably wise.

 

But since then I always felt forced by a real need to upgrade,

and only get a stop gap device I did not really or never wanted.

Finally they all paid off well - just because there did not came

any reasonable successor in time.

 

And now again, a ridiculous Mac Pro offer or a Mac Studio

without M3, 3nm or RT. None of which most already expected with 

M2 release.

 

Feels like we all should better just go for a standard new MBA 15",

be happy with non existing fans and ignore the reality in the world outside.

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1 hour ago, zoomer said:

Feels like we all should better just go for a standard new MBA 15"

 

Absolutely fantastic machine for my non-VW friends and family but capped at 24gb shared memory.


With the exception of Timmy and Jony's "Can't innovate anymore, my ass" Trash Can, the whole point of the Mac Pro has always been modular upgradability and compatibility. It's truly a sad day that they just killed off their flagship.

 

Don't get me wrong; ARM in mobile / portable makes sense for watches, phones, tablets, laptops... and goggles. But it has been getting destroyed by Intel and NVIDIA on desktops since a year after its release. And it's not upgradable! Imagine have to completely replace a $10,000 tower with an $11,000 tower just to bump the RAM (which has been reduced from 1.5tb to 192gb)!

 

🤬🤬🤬

 

In the end, it's just another nearsighted dead end to lock in consumers to Apple's disposable ecosystem.

 

 

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The lack of hardware ray-tracing is a pain. From what I've read it seems Apple have tried to bring this to the A-series of phone chips and failed. I would imagine the power requirements and cooling needs of ray-tracing is one of the main things holding it back.

 

I doubt it's that they just "don't care" - I think Apple would use it a lot and love to tell everyone about how realistic they can make generated lighting. I think ray tracing would be particularly important for creating immersive experiences in their AR/VR headset. I think it's more probable that including this in a chip takes an unacceptable (to them) amount of power draw (for laptops) and cooling (for all models).

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2 hours ago, _James said:

Apple have tried to bring this to the A-series of phone chips and failed. I would imagine the power requirements and cooling needs of ray-tracing is one of the main things holding it back.

 

 

It was Power and Battery drain for iOS devices.

Something a Mac Studio user may not really care of.

But the SoCs are designed for iPhone first.

 

Therefore we desktop users have to wait another round or two.

I am sure RT acceleration will come at one point.

Makes it so hard to buy a decent specced M2 Studio now.

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Actions speak louder than words. If real-time hardware Ray tracing for Mac customers was a priority for Apple, they would have signed NVIDIA’s drivers and allowed us to stick their cards in a Mac Pro. Years ago. These aren’t rocket problems. Timmy’s priority was to cripple the Mac Pro by locking users into the walled garden.

 

Sure, they’ll probably provide hardware raytracing on M3 Ultra or M4 Ultra at some point but by then there will be a 50-series from NVIDIA. We’ve all been having this same discussion for years. Apple have never made it a priority to give us the best GPU’s.


Wake me up when Apple give users what we need instead of telling us what we want. In a Mac Pro, Mac Studio, or MacBook Pro. Any of the above.

 

Also, mark my words, they’ve just “Trash Canned” the Mac Pro again by painting themselves into a corner with a SOC. This is not the way.

 

7ofnx8.jpg.f7fedef89f551cce45d7ced665a2dc04.jpg

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3 hours ago, Mark Aceto said:

If real-time hardware Ray tracing for Mac customers was a priority for Apple, they would have signed NVIDIA’s drivers and allowed us to stick their cards in a Mac Pro. Years ago.

 

Apple had these issues with a production line of Nvidia (macbook ?) cards

with soldering problems that all died during guarantee period and made

Apple users unhappy (with Apple)

Apple wanted a compensation and Nvidia denied.

That was the end of any collaboration with Nvidia ....

Therefore AMD GPU only.

 

Unfortunately their hardware deals prevented us from AMD Ryzen CPUs.

But they did not offer faster and cheaper i7s vs expensive slow Xeons in Pro

desktops anyway though.

 

Later with their true own A chips and "what is a computer" believing iPad will

replace all desktops (!?), there was no more need for PC components anyway.

 

And later, feels like decades, that Apple was working and preparing for M SoCs

or A SoC siblings, that should replace Intel CPUs, AMD GPUs, standard SSD and

RAM access.

No more real upgrade price comparison, no more later upgradability and even

no more reason to complain about taking slots away and soldering.

 

 

3 hours ago, Mark Aceto said:

Timmy’s priority was to cripple the Mac Pro by locking users into the walled garden.

 

Indeed, it looks like M2 Mac Pro got much less love than even Live Photos, Emojies or

"Stickers" - so I expect Apple may announce that no one wants or buys it and it

will be cancelled in 2-3 years.

 

 

3 hours ago, Mark Aceto said:

Apple have never made it a priority to give us the best GPU’s.

 

First Apple showed clearly being uninterested in CPUs (Rendering),
GPUs would be the next big thing, when it was realistically still far away

(Trash Can, 2nd GPU only manifested in Luxmark and finally in Blender

in 2021)

Second, Apple also stated they will not throw raw power on problems,

(which often made me scared for my workflows) but search and eliminate

bottlenecks by optimizing ....

So it was clear that Apple's development would never satisfy raw power

needs, even for our valid 3D needs.

 

Killing (x86) Bottlenecks ...

manifested nicely in their own ARM SoC development, but also forced

developers to optimize their Software - which was likely not happening,

at least to Apple's and our wish - in our standard CAD and 3D market.

 

But together with ignoring content creators in general vs content consumers,

Apple was never really interested in in 3D, it was always about 2D Artists and

later also 2D in motion = video artists or YouTubers only.

 

 

4 hours ago, Mark Aceto said:

they’ve just “Trash Canned” the Mac Pro again by painting themselves into a corner with a SOC. This is not the way.

 

 

I think they could have easily added standard RAM Slots for something in between

fast shared memory and slower SSD swapping if they would not be ignorant.

They could also have offered a few NVme Slots for storage, they could have at least

offer AMD GPU card expansion slots.

 

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When I have to replace the tires on my car, I don’t sell the car and buy a new one.


The whole point of the 2019 MP was, “We talked to our pro customers and the number one thing they wanted was modular so here’s the new modular Mac Pro.”

 

Just like Steve said about Pepsi, the sales people are running the company now. Tim has to go.

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38 minutes ago, Mark Aceto said:

When I have to replace the tires on my car, I don’t sell the car and buy a new one.


I imagine there is a large portion of new car sales that I actually occur for this reason.  Take 3 years depreciation on the car and get a new one, most tires last longer than 40k 🙂  You are money ahead on the lack of maintenance spending and tax savings.

 

These big companies use the same thinking in everything they do, it is how you maximize revenue.  Individuals can’t effectively scale in that way, so it makes no sense to them.  Gatorade redesigned their bottle to hold less so they could keep prices the same, most people don’t notice…

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53 minutes ago, Mark Aceto said:

Just like Steve said about Pepsi, the sales people are running the company now.

 

That is obvious and a pity.

But it tripled Apples value or more.

 

They do care of their customers.

Just now consumers and no more content creators,

which fitted so well in their culture before.

But financially that strategic seems to work well or even better.

From the culture and the special to the mass and boutique market.

 

Steve Jobs about Bill Gates, interviewed beside Bill Gates ....,

well, if his goal was to get the richest man in the world, he did everything right.

We want to make the best products bla, bla, ...

 

Apple always, also under Steve Jobs said,

we asked our Customers and the want ...... that (current product) features .....

 

But it was all OK in high times ,wlike with beginning Intel Switch in 2006 until

about 2009, until 20012, where user's needs and Apple's vision made a

perfect Symbiose.

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I'm never in the market for the top tier machines, so something in the current offerings would suit my needs.  The only real issues are price, timing, and figuring out what level of performance I need for my VW workflow.  My best guess right now is that I'll wait until 15" MacBook Airs w/ 24GB RAM show up in the Apple refurbished store (unless my 2019 Intel iMac dies before then).

 

My condolences to those who push the envelope and need top of the line machines with upgrade possibilities.  

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From the 2019 Apple press release:

 

https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2019/06/apple-unveils-powerful-all-new-mac-pro-and-groundbreaking-pro-display-xdr/

ScreenShot2023-06-06at15_22_42.png.b1cc0522ce5cc6b986ac0f6bb4394ffb.png

 

And then it goes on about the user serviceable / upgradable RAM, user replaceable discreet graphics card, and "stunning modular enclosure".

 

This is a historic event. Apple have never jumped the shark like this. Even the trashcan had user serviceable RAM, and was compatible with an EGPU (and NVIDIA cards / drivers through 2017).

 

I don't know how many different ways to say this but if someone buys a M2 Mac Pro today for $10,000, and wants to upgrade the RAM, they have to sell that computer, and buy an entirely new one for at least another $10,000. In a desktop tower system. That until yesterday, supported user serviceable RAM up to 1.5tb.

 

This isn't just the end of the transition from x86 to ARM. This is the beginning of the end... 

 

Edited by Mark Aceto
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10 hours ago, Mark Aceto said:

And then it goes on about the user serviceable / upgradable RAM, user replaceable discreet graphics card, and "stunning modular enclosure".

 

And a few years later, if you want, there were SSD upgrade kits and you could

upgrade to a cheap used 12 core CPU.

 

Better do not try this with your M2 Ultra ....

Edited by zoomer
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