Not much more than I paid for my iMac 27 inch when I bought it a couple of years ago for the base model and the top end one is around the price of a MacPro.
These are pro level machines and expecting non pro prices is probably a step too far IMO.
Me? I can see me replacing my 27inch iMac with one of these if Apple don’t bring out something similar before my extended warranty expires, they would be superior to the iMac for doing photo editing.
I think the ads look really impressive too, but remember this is Microsoft. The Surface tablets looked fantastic as well but, and I’m only going on others’ experience here, people seem to have a lot of trouble with the software. There’s a basic issue there of trying to combine a touch driven interface with a mouse driven one and I’m not sure it will get smooth in the near future. Full marks to MS for having a go at it and for their overall turnaround under Nutella, but plenty of smart people think it’s a dead end and it is, for the time being at least, full of holes and jarring glitches. Again, from what I read in reviews and hear from people who use this stuff.
I’d have to agree that the whinging seems to have become an epidemic here too. Unless the new MBPs double as flying cars that make avocado smashes and give blowjobs, the chorus will drown out any discussion about what might actually be some good new hardware.
I would love it Apple brought out something that looked like it could be as awesome as the Surface Studio, but there’s no reason to think it will work like an Apple product and every reason to think it will be like a Surface Pro - really nice hardware and messy software that is still so much more face palm inducing than it should ever have been.
Apple don’t even really have to try that hard to please many people. Another epidemic is the justification of absolutely crazy moves. I can guarantee if Apple removes MagSafe (which is by the way, one of the best Apple laptop related inventions ever) people will justify it because Apple can do no wrong in some people’s heads.
I’ve got a Microsoft Surface Pro 4 that I use at work, it runs Office, MYOB, Lightroom and Photoshop without any issues (that I’ve had anyway).
The interface in tablet mode is not close to being as nice to use as an iPad but I use it with an attached keyboard 95% of the time and treat the device as if it was a compact laptop with a touch screen and used that way it works extremely well.
It is NOT a replacement for an iPad (or an iPad Pro) and you won’t be happy with one if that’s how you try and use it. It does (for me) the same job that the MacBook Air used to do but with a nicer screen.
I think a lot of people don’t understand this -
The iPad Pro is such a different device to the Surface Pro.
[quote=“Oldmacs, post:23, topic:2876”]
Apple don’t even really have to try that hard to please many people.[/quote]
Very true. But Apple don’t seem to care as much as they should about their users. And they are making more product mistakes as time goes by. Some decisions are outright mistakes, some are rushed to market before their time, some are delayed by years where only Apple can explain what on earth their thinking was.
I’ve said for a long time that no company’s future is guaranteed and that includes Apple. I hope that Apple continues to listen to users and factors in what they want and need, rather than thinking that they can always push upon us what they think we want or need.
This is my thinking also - I have/used to have a lot of love for Apple. They’ve always done things to push technology, but its gotten past that point IMHO. Apple nearly died last time it became to complacent and convinced they could do anything. Problem is that many will buy Apple stuff regardless of how good/bad it is. Just like Microsoft in the late 90s/2000s - Windows being sub par but being purchased because it was ‘good enough’. I don’t want Apple products to be bought out of habit because they’re good enough.
Good to know it’s working for you and you’re obviously not alone. I hope the new Studio is also good because great companies tend to perform better when they’ve got excellent competition. And I still think Apple is a great company.
I completely agree that windows 10 cannot be compared to OSX as an OS. But you have to admit, Microsoft hardware is catching up and in some cases, superseded apple’s hardware - case in point being the innovations around the touchscreen desktop, use of pen and the dial device. Microsoft is clearly going after the graphics design crowd that are traditionally Apple users. I am still all in with apple at home and at work because of the OS but I am hoping that their hardware especially desktops with Macs keep up.
Case in point here:
Microsoft’s Windows chief sees a future where the regular input devices — touch, mouse and keyboard, or stylus — are complimented by objects that interact with a PC’s screen. Talking to The Verge after Microsoft’s Surface event yesterday, Windows and devices chief Terry Myerson discussed the new Surface Studio, radial menus, the Surface Dial, and more.
They are at least innovating.
“Why does the MacBook Pro have a headphone jack? One word: Cowardice.”
How do I feel about the keynote?
Fuck. Them.
The new MBA’s purpose is to provide a justification for the MacBook. What other purpose for that spec device have at that ridiculous price? At about 50% higher than it should be. I suspect MacBook sales haven’t been that good, outsold even by old gen MBAs, so rather than embarrass whoever greenlighted the MacBook they have destroyed the MBA to make the sales of the MacBook look better.
They have destroyed their education market.
Wow Apple. You just got rid of one of the best Apple laptop features ever (magsafe) for no reason. The MacBook Air’s ‘replacement’ has less ports than the Air, and is over $2000. The lineup is now even more confusing then before - they’re selling 3 versions of the MacBook Pro now.
Just another example of the lack of focus and incoherence of the current Apple.
I agree with this - Air sales from what I’ve read are massive so were non retina pro sales, but neither laptop meets Apple’s ‘vision’ so instead of giving customers what they want and update them, they let them die slow deaths by not updating.
I am Anakin!
I wouldn’t want a Surface Pro to be a replacement for an iPad, to me iOS is the most pointless incarnation of a tablet device Operating System there ever has been since Palm OS, and I had a Palm Pilot also at one point. If I’m going to have a portable tablet device it had better have a real operating system, that can multitask properly and do more than one thing at once without a half arsed implementation of an operating system.
iOS on a tablet does nothing for me.
Interesting view. Personally I don’t use an iPad. I use an iPhone Plus, which I guess these days is the same as an iPad, but I use it for everything “little” - email - web browsing etc. Anything bigger and I jump on my Mac Pro or MacBook Air. I personally see them as different devices. I don’t try and edit video on my iPhone. I know it can do it, but I still wouldn’t sit there trying to edit video on my phone. That would just frustrate me.
I use my iPhone 5S for little things, for everything from using it as a digital audio recorder because the iPhone has excelent in built microphones, 3 of them in fact, which obsoleted my need to purchase a stereo digital recorder such a Zoom H4N. Don’t get me wrong the Zoom or a Tascam is probably better but for what I do in recording interviews to be transcribed for later use, it’s absolutely pointless to me.
I also use my 5S as a personal email client which is good in principle for checking up with whats going on around me on the run, but its a little tedious if you want a properly formatted email beyond that.
If I need to step up and do intensive tasks I jump across to my MacBook Pro and to a device that has a proper implementation of symetric multi-tasking where I can run multiple apps and where I can flick across quickly using hot corners between apps, or use multiple desktops, whatever.
To me trying to use iOS as an operating system for productivity is about as painful as trying to use OS9 for productivity. It just doesn’t happen. Using iOS reminds me of that same type of basic cooperative multi-tasking where really one app takes over the entire CPU and hands off to the next app when you click over to it. Even really the iOS desktop reminds me, kind of, of the Windows 3.11 program manager, except its slightly easier to switch between apps.
As a power user I cringe at being given an iPad to do anything serious what so ever. I see it as a sort of arcane device that sort of fills the role of doing some things but it doesn’t do anything particularly well. Some people can get by with an iPad but its always a compromise and no one is willing to release commercial software that will do things properly for iOS as a desktop. In that sense I may as well choose to go out and run Linux, because I can’t get a proper Office suite, or Photoshop or Lightroom or anything like that for Linux natively either.
Here I’ll state it like this, I don’t get it… I really don’t get it… OS X is now, and has been for some time, completely touch friendly, pinch to zoom in preview, 5 finger swipe gestures to launch the launchpad, what have you. All of the gestures are there and with the latest version of OS X so is touch sensitive gestures, the dock your familiar with is there, Launchpad is there and these all operate with the same gestures. Apple could release a proper tablet running OS X in fact you would think from all the background implementation for touch support at one point they were heading in that direction, but they don’t and so my next tablet device is likely going to be a Surface Pro.
I have an iPad as well as the Surface Pro 4 but my iPad is a mini 4 because it’s used for content consumption, basically I use it for watching movies and reading books. I don’t need or want a full size iPad to walk around with.
I see my various devices as meeting different needs, even if I can force each of them to do the job I use the other ones for it’s not worth the loss in ease of use.