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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday April 10 2018, @07:55AM   Printer-friendly
from the amorphous-blob-maybe dept.

Submitted via IRC for fyngyrz

A year ago, I visited the Apple campus in Cupertino to figure out where the hell the new Mac Pro was. I joined a round table discussion with Apple SVPs and a handful of reporters to get the skinny on what was taking so long. The answer, it turns out, was that Apple had decided to start completely over with the Mac Pro, introduce completely new pro products like the iMac Pro and refresh the entire MacBook Pro lineup.

[...] In that discussion a year ago, Apple SVP Phil Schiller acknowledged that pro customers, including developers, were hungry for evidence that Apple was paying attention to their needs. "We recognize that they want to hear more from us. And so we want to communicate better with them. We want them to understand the importance they have for us, we want them to understand that we're investing in new Macs — not only new MacBook Pros and iMacs but Mac Pros for them, we want them to know we are going to work on a display for a modular system," Schiller said.

[...] While there are no further details on the exact shape that the Mac Pro will take, Boger says they are still very much in the modular mindset. [...]What shape that modularity takes is another matter entirely, of course. I know some people have been pining for the days of internal expansion card configurations with standardized hardware — and maybe that is the way that this will go. But on Tuesday I also got a tour of the editing suites where Mac hardware and software is pushed to the limits, including extensive use of eGPU support, and a different vision emerges.

[...] All we currently know about the Mac Pro is that it's modular and that it's being shaped by the feedback from those pros in-house, as well as external conversations with developers and professional users.

[...] As a side note, by the way, I wouldn't expect to see any more info about Mac Pro at WWDC in June. Maybe Apple will surprise on that front, but I think for anything further about Mac Pro we're going to have to wait for next year.

Source: https://techcrunch.com/2018/04/05/apples-2019-imac-pro-will-be-shaped-by-workflows/


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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Tuesday April 10 2018, @12:26PM (2 children)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday April 10 2018, @12:26PM (#664913) Journal

    Software wise they're designing UIs around industrial workflow (reducing clicks and the likes).

    Uh, that's such a double-edges sword. After all, computers need to be interacted with to be useful.
    Otherwise... the "intuitive design replaces dozens of keys with a single wheel" [theonion.com] is an option too.

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  • (Score: 2) by RamiK on Tuesday April 10 2018, @01:49PM (1 child)

    by RamiK (1813) on Tuesday April 10 2018, @01:49PM (#664935)

    Just one popular example. Shortening mouse travel and contrasting UI elements are classics too. My impression from the conservative undertone is that they won't go for a whole new UI concept and will only go as far as gradually adding time-tested features like they did copy-paste history and workspaces.

    The thing about this project is that 3 years is VERY long term. Too long to just repackage an x86 or spit-polish an existing UI. For a company the size if Apple, it's enough to do you own compute, graphics cores and SoC. It's enough to write your own new OS. It might even be enough to do both. So, I'm looking at their team makeup and trying to list the things I think they're trying do according to the workflow they've stated. Best I can make is that they're just exploring what can be done and how much of the current PC architecture they can leave behind starting with the ATX motherboard and/or the eGPU expansion slot going for a more embedded solution, to even dumping the x86 completely. That is, the team's composition doesn't smell like a new OS.

    But it's all just my interpretation of the article. Some people read the exact opposite into it. And the time table is so far ahead I think they have plenty of time to change their minds or make some aggressive deal with Intel anyhow. So, meh...

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    • (Score: 3, Interesting) by hemocyanin on Tuesday April 10 2018, @03:35PM

      by hemocyanin (186) on Tuesday April 10 2018, @03:35PM (#664987) Journal

      ...and workspaces.

      And then they'll fuck it up. I recently gave up on Snow Leopard and every recent version of OSX sucks. In the new iteration of workspaces, when you do the expose thing you CANNOT move windows from one workspace to another in the icon view -- you have to go to the workspace where the window is, then grab it and move it where you want. Previously, you could be in any workspace and switch the iconized image of any application from any workspace to another. I had to spend $12 to buy a program to get useful workspaces back.

      Or their is Preview -- used to be you could open a PDF and from the menu there was a "print this page" option. Gone. Now you have to go through the print dialogue and type in the page range, or open the sidebar and select the page you want in the sidebar, check an option to print that page, and then click OK. What the hell was wrong with the previous very convenient method?

      It's so bad that for an older machine I use for my 3D printer, I eventually just said screw it, and installed Mint. Sooooo much more user friendly.