New Mac Pro 2013

[TheBadger]

http://macpro.macrumors.com/

I hope this forthcoming work station will restore my (and everyones) faith in Apple as a innovator!
The prosumer stuff is nice, but apple was made what it is by artists. They need to make a new desk top that will rival everything out there for hungry software.

[Andrew March]

Sorry, can't be bothered with a company who can't even put cities in my country in the right place on the map or for that matter can't even be bothered to spell the name of the city correctly!

[TheBadger]

lol. I hear ya'

But in fairness, the pro towers are not limited to app store apps. And don't have any problem running just about any software including windows, if you like.
The fact that the average life span of all the parts in a off the shelf mac is more than ten years (by and large) is a pretty nice feature too. The G4 I got in 2001 just died last week. I could fix it, but I don't see the point since it cant run the software I use now. So I am just going to burn the hard drive and connect the monitor to my current work station. Be nice to have two monitors at long last. I could sure use the real estate!

[Andrew March]

Oh I know, Macs have been the foundation of Artists and Musicians for years but this desire to to turn the brand into some sort of techno DKNY is doing nothing to improve the quality of products and thier decision to pursue a lawsuit against Samsung (a company whose chips and processors are in every mobile Apple product) has all just reinforced my opinion of a spoilt child wanting to keep the toys that it has borrowed from it's next door neighbour.

[TheBadger]

all just reinforced my opinion of a spoilt child wanting to keep the toys that it has borrowed from it's next door neighbour.

HA AH! Good one.

Of course you know that sometimes bad kids need spankings! And the consumer is mommy and daddy.
Recently I posted about how Apple was not going to support Snow anymore because they have two newer OS versions. Well aparently a lot of others were unhappy about this too. And said so.
So within a week of that last post my software was fully updated!
Power to the people 

[Andrew March]

The average consumer is a fickle swine and sooner or later Apple will screw up so big or a newer more bling brand will replace them and the fall for Apple will be very swift and very painfull.

[Tangled-Universe]

The average consumer is a fickle swine and sooner or later Apple will screw up so big or a newer more bling brand will replace them and the fall for Apple will be very swift and very painfull.

The onset to this is already in motion.
Hence the ever increasing number of lawsuits against competitors.
I think they realise they can't keep it up much longer the way they do things now.
The lawsuits for patents is nothing more than trying to kill competitors and trying to stall/keep up the current situation as long as possible.

Kill the competitors = killing the need to innovate and keep revenues as high as possible.

They never innovated anyway. All their devices are stuffed with other people's tech. Combining them into a clever product was their innovation.
Wining and suing companies over patents has nothing to do with innovation and the above, but only with what I explained in the first part.
Patents they should have never obtained anyway. Like rounded corners or certain gestures for a touchscreen.
You can't patent the way you operate a steering wheel in a car, but Apple somehow managed to get it patented in the US's rotten patent system.
It's a shame.

[TheBadger]

Did not hear some of what you said before, Martin. If its true, I suspect having a former Vic President on the board of directors helps do the things you are saying.

But I doubt very much that apple is going to crumble. That sounds like wishful thinking to me.

[Tangled-Universe]

Did not hear some of what you said before, Martin. If its true, I suspect having a former Vic President on the board of directors helps do the things you are saying.

But I doubt very much that apple is going to crumble. That sounds like wishful thinking to me.

You can easily find quotes from the oh so worshipped Apple god and messiah himself, Steve Jobs (barf):
He repeatedly admitted that his strategy and wish is to literally destroy the competition. To the word.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-15400984

It's definitely not my wish to have Apple go to crumble.
The best thing would be that Apple would be more outspoken aware of its position in a more positive way. Also their userbase (see below).
The way they profile themselves now is indeed a bit like Andrew said. Very negative. Those patents are super-shady and way too general to be a patent worthy.
It wouldn't surprise me if they were illegally obtained by paying patent-offices (employees) to accept their "patents".
Of course that's speculation and subjective, but considering that the US system offers the freedom to do with your money what you want then it shouldn't surprise anyone that paying people "to get the job done" is actually happening.

They innovated on user-friendly devices and they forced the competition to think more about how to make their stuff more userfriendly. That's good.
What's happening now is not good.
A nice extra would be that the fanboys become a bit more critic and stop worshipping their iDevices and Apple.
It's just a frikking phone, mediaplayer or tablet. Not a way of life. Wake up

To get more OT.
A Mac Pro is a very expensive shiny beautiful PC (the abbreviation still applies, Windows or not).
For the price of one you can assemble ~2 similar machines yourself. And if you can't assemble it yourself, then almost 2.

Apple used to be popular with Artists. Both graphic as audio, but that's such a rusty and outdated picture.
Back in that time there was no similar software for Windows and there were certainly no assemblers offering complete solutions similar to Apple + graphic/audio.
Nowadays there's tons more available for Windows and >95% of the world runs windows, ensuring compatibility everywhere. Also the Windows software completely blew the Apple alternatives away: Apple Logic/Cubase (latter became windows based though) vs Windows Trackers/FruityLoops/Reason/VSTi's, as example.
Apple users are the exception now while they used to be the norm. That has changed.
And with modern software the argument that Apple is easier/more userfriendly isn't very strong. Todays software requires a certain level of technical thinking which almost ensures that the one operates it also knows more about the PC than power-button, keyboard and mouse. Rather more likely than unlikely.

So I'd say get a super high-end Windows machine with SSD, 32GB RAM, dual Xeon and the whole kit and caboodle and you can get a nice screen as well.
All for the price of a lower spec'ed Mac Pro.

[reck]

With the computers at my work place we are certainly seeing a decline on the mac side of things with people going more for PC's. When we send down the quotes and they see they can a much more powerful PC system for a lot less cash than a mac and they can do the same work on them, it's clear why they don't want macs any more.

I think another thing putting people off is that some of the software we use is PC only so the mac users have to keep either booting up windows via bootcamp or switching OS's via virtual machine software. On the PC side of things everything just works right out the box.

However on the mobile side of things the Ipads and iPhones are booming. This is where Apple are dominating right now and you can see their focus seems to be on this area with the macs a sort of second rate product.

[TheBadger]

Its funny. I always secretly hope that people will convince me to buy a PC when I get into these discussions. Because I would like to save as much money as possible the next time I buy a computer system. And believe it or not, I am convincible by good and reasonable arguments. I am open on most things.

But it never fails on the Mac Vs PC front that the people on the PC side say crazy ass things that make no sense whatsoever. Never fails.

lol. Thanks guys. But I will still wait until the next tower is out to make a judgment on apple. If there is no improvement I might pick up a PC, but I suspect apple is conscious of the need to make some dramatic improvements in all areas of their desktops. Hence the link in the OP.

[Tangled-Universe]

Well admittedly, beside the regular Apple bashing and BS there's also always the same super-valid argument: you can get almost 2 similar PC's for the price of 1 Mac. If someone isn't convinced by that, yet he or she  says money is the most important decision factor, then he/she has either already decided to buy an Apple anyway or money isn't actually that important

[TheBadger]

you can get almost 2 similar PC's for the price of 1 Mac.

This is the most sound argument anyone can make. No one can defeat this statement.

Apple really needs to address it. either by lowering prices, but that will never happen because people are willing to pay the price. Or by adding more value.

Adding more value is almost a certainty now, I think. Bad publicity and a bad economy.
But the next tower will reveal the full truth. After the specs are released we will know all.