Apple response to the surface?

[BicycleMafioso]

I was strictly PC until I discovered apple about 6 years ago. I became strictly Mac up until now. The new Windows tile UI for their phones and OS is so amazing, I might just switch back. I think the only thing that holding me back is the $3000 I spent in iTunes over the last 6 years, so only the music I have physically on CDs I will be able to listen to, and ever since mp3s and music downloading, I haven't bought a CD in a long, long time.

I don't know about WP8, Windows RT, but it should work with the desktop platform.

iTunes was (literally) the one thing that steered me away from Apple, so I haven't investigated it personally, sorry.

[apepi]

From what I see Windows RT pro does not look that bad. It comes with a i5 processor, so it might be able to play wow with(low settings). The price looks high though, so you might as well just get a laptop. Though I am glad more and more tablets companies are using usb in their tablets, I love my acer tablet.

[yurano]

I was strictly PC until I discovered apple about 6 years ago. I became strictly Mac up until now. The new Windows tile UI for their phones and OS is so amazing, I might just switch back. I think the only thing that holding me back is the $3000 I spent in iTunes over the last 6 years, so only the music I have physically on CDs I will be able to listen to, and ever since mp3s and music downloading, I haven't bought a CD in a long, long time.

Isn't the iTunes library bound to your 'apple account'? Wouldn't you be able to transfer it?

http://support.apple.com/kb/HT4527

From what I see Windows RT pro does not look that bad. It comes with a i5 processor, so it might be able to play wow with(low settings). The price looks high though, so you might as well just get a laptop. Though I am glad more and more tablets companies are using usb in their tablets, I love my acer tablet.

But laptops don't have that touch screen. I'm pretty sure people are willing to pay $100-200 to add a touch screen to their laptops. Plus, Surface Pro isn't the only Windows Tablet solution out there. Its probably meant as a "here's whats possible" product. Microsoft relies heavily on OEMs to create the final product (eg. your Acer tablet).

[Deleted]

Wait, I can't have a free jab against Apple here?

Was looking forward to it, oh well.

OT: Not sure if they need it, people will still buy Apple because they have this image in their mind that it's 'the best'.

I even had to convince my little 10 year old sister that it is not the best and that it's just marketing.

[Llunai]

people who needlessly hate on apple are just as annoying as apple fan boys. Also, please tell me when google begins making products in america (and no the nexus Q doesn't count).

Apple doesn't make products in the US either (at least, they don't as of today). True, they've announced an intention to do so, but the product you purchase today was not built in the US.

Even when they do start producing products in the US, it is likely to be a single high-margin product line (rumored to be the new Mac Pro's), and it will only be assembled in the States. All components will still be manufactured in China, Taiwan, etc.

[Joey Ray III]

iTunes was (literally) the one thing that steered me away from Apple, so I haven't investigated it personally, sorry.

no shit. i still love my iphone 3gs but itunes is just a disaster. my next phone wont be apple.

[Faithh]

no shit. i still love my iphone 3gs but itunes is just a disaster. my next phone wont be apple.

Few years later: "My next phone won't be android"

[a21fa7c67f26f6d49a20c2c51]

Care to elaborate on why Mac Pro is "lump of shit" ? I'd like to hear some solid, non-opinionated explanation.

I'm a guy that owns one of the current models but bought it back in 2010. That's the major issue: 2 years ago the mac pro was costly, but not terribly priced for an entry level workstation or small workgroup server. It's well built, reasonably pretty, and runs the best UNIX operating system in the world - and you can still use Photoshop and play Halflife on it. That's where the praise for the mac pro runs out. Their ghetto all-in-one consumer line is now a faster and cheaper option for many professionals doing 'pro' work and I think that's a bit of a shame.

There are some minor design issues (the tower is gigantic and doesn't fit under my 'normal sized' desk - the top handles are razer sharp and will cleave your fingers off if you try to use them) but they're pretty minor. Still, at the price you'd kind of hope these things were thought through. I didn't really get upset about the price I paid for mine - it was the best way to get a computer capable of filling my needs. Today there simply isn't a good "professional" mac on the market. I mean in 2009 the best graphics card you could get was a mid-range consumer part and that's still your best choice today. 3.2 GHz Xeon is fairly nice - but that 3.4 GHz i7 in the consumer products is pretty damn good too.

Given the popularity of macs in design/image editing where graphics cards are actually useful for macs (see: lightroom, motion, fcp) and their prevelence in biotech applications (where gcd and gpgu is useful) I don't think it's too much to ask for $6000 computer to have a graphics card from this decade. Onboard RAID options are basically nonexitent (OS X offers software raid but you'll easily saturate the SATA bus with modern SSDs - Apple prefers you use fibrechannel) but your typical home photographer or programmer isn't shelling out $15,000 for a disk subsystem. For those of us using our macs to build applications - having a really high quality raid setup (say 4 SSDs in raid 0) can drastically improve our compile and test time which means more bugs squashed, less time waiting. It's a huge quality of life improvement for anybody doing TDD and it's just not an option right now. Then there's the lack of thunderbolt and esata which makes your external storage options pretty limited (unless you want to shell out several thousand dollars for a FC setup).

I've got $4000 to give to Apple right now if there was a compelling upgrade but they'd literally be selling me a computer I've already owned long enough to earn a BSc. Right now it makes way more sense to buy an iMac and use any extra money to build a dedicated compute box out of cheap PC hardware for pretty much every workflow. Some of their other hardware is really good: I think the iPhone, iMac, and Macbook Air, and Macbook Pro, and iPad, and iPod Touch are all the best product in their category. The mac pro is sorely outdated and really needs a refresh - or it needs to be taken out back and shot so those of us that actually use that kind of hardware can plan our next purchases accordingly.

I think the only thing that holding me back is the $3000 I spent in iTunes over the last 6 years, so only the music I have physically on CDs I will be able to listen to, and ever since mp3s and music downloading, I haven't bought a CD in a long, long time.

iTunes songs haven't had DRM for a very long time (2009) and there is an option to convert anything you purchased before that to DRM free. (either through the iTunes plus upgrade at ~$2/album, or via iTunes in the cloud: a 1 time $25 fee for all your music). Windows Phone should play your AAC files just fine.

Your movies and tv-shows are still tied to iTunes/iPhones and it should go without saying that applications would be dead too - but don't let music be a reason not to switch.

[Cyanotical]

etc.

personally i've had to work on those, and on the interior they are amazing, you could win a case modder award with one bone stock, but thats about where the praise for the mac pro ends

-they are a terrible investment for the performance
-they are NOT what the "pros" use, even though most teachers think they are (actual industry uses a mix of windows and linux based render farms) which relegate -mac's to the "i wanna be taken seriously as a pro crowd"
-repairs and upgrades are lengthy and costly, (had to wait 5 months for a replacement GPU for one once)
-the OS is not as good as most other UNIX variants, and often kills legacy support way too soon
-if you build it yourself, you can build a mac pro equivalent running centOS or UBstudio for much less, enough less to by a real workstation GPU, not a "mac edition" Radeon

and when looking at their laptops, yes they are pretty and yes that are quality built, but at the end of the day, everyone knows they fall short of what you can get on the PC side when it comes to price vs performance, and laptops like Razer's Blade also challenge them on the quality and design aspect

ipads are great, however, there are better tablets, and i think the ipad line has peaked at the ipad2, andriod tablets are matching and the surfacepro will be much better than anything in the ipad line

the phones are in the same situation as the tablets, just don't use your iphone's iOS maps to find your way to Mildura, you may die

music, on the other hand apple is terrible at, my android phone plays FLAC, not ALAC, but genuine FLAC, and i didn't have to mod it, there are also much better music players out there, the problem is that most people are convinced that the ipod is the only choice


personally, i hope apple hurts for a while, i want to see the surface pro decimate the ipad, not because i hate apple, but because apple has no reason to be competitive and innovate right now, they need a surge in creativity, otherwise we are just gonna see every product redone with a increased numeral, but with no real changes other than cheaper hardware (iphone5 vs iphone 4s)

i would also like to see them get in trouble legally, they've been running around bullying other companies in court over patents, and like any schoolyard bully, they need someone to punch them in the face

[EverFX]

Ping may get another chance in the late future.
Apple Office will probably be pushed in an attempt to overtake Microsoft Office on Apple's own hardware.

Apple isn't a hardware company. Creating good software becomes a lot easier when you control the medium through which the software is provider to users. You don't invest in Apple because you want performance. You invest because you want something that works and works for you.

I'll be the first to admit a cult following exists in spades, but the majority of consumers are simply not tech savvy individuals, nor do they care to be. That's what we design for.

[Detheavn]

*not a big phone that you can't use as a phone.

Nothing skype and a BT headset can't fix

[Deleted]

Re: Mac Pro

The current lineup is antiquated, even Apple themselves have admitted that their current Mac Pro offerings are outdated. They've also stated that they're working a big update of the Mac Pro for 2013.

Generally I'd say the Mac Pro tends to be on-par with other workstations* when it's recently refreshed (which it definitely isn't right now).


* If you don't understand what a workstation is then please learn what it is before you reply to my post with some parts list for a 1337 g4m1ng rig. Workstations aren't primarily for gaming and use different hardware (Xeon CPUs, ECC RAM etc, AND ONCE AGAIN, THE CURRENT MAC PRO IS OUTDATED, EVERYONE KNOWS THIS SO NO NEED FOR ANOTHER PARTS LIST)

[Cyanotical]

* If you don't understand what a workstation is then please learn what it is before you reply to my post with some parts list for a 1337 g4m1ng rig. Workstations aren't primarily for gaming and use different hardware (Xeon CPUs, ECC RAM etc, AND ONCE AGAIN, THE CURRENT MAC PRO IS OUTDATED, EVERYONE KNOWS THIS SO NO NEED FOR ANOTHER PARTS LIST)

up to that level, a majority of workstations built are probably using i7s instead of Xeons, there are tons of renderstations being built with 3930ks atm

[Deleted]

up to that level, a majority of workstations built are probably using i7s instead of Xeons, there are tons of renderstations being built with 3930ks atm

Render slaves aren't workstations.

But yeah, for certain things that used to demand a proper workstation you can get away with a "regular desktop" these days. I'm just annoyed by people who will compare the cheapest possible DIY quad CI5 rig with a workstation without even understanding that the typical workstation buyer would not bother with building their own machines.

If you're spending $30-100k/year per seat on software licenses (and yes, there are companies spending that much on software licenses alone, hell there are freelance graphics guys blowing north of $10k every year just to stay current software-wise) the cost of buying a $10k workstation is nothing.

[Cyanotical]

Render slaves aren't workstations.

But yeah, for certain things that used to demand a proper workstation you can get away with a "regular desktop" these days. I'm just annoyed by people who will compare the cheapest possible DIY quad CI5 rig with a workstation without even understanding that the typical workstation buyer would not bother with building their own machines.

If you're spending $30-100k/year per seat on software licenses (and yes, there are companies spending that much on software licenses alone, hell there are freelance graphics guys blowing north of $10k every year just to stay current software-wise) the cost of buying a $10k workstation is nothing.

well yeah, im not talking about the i5s, a SB-E i7 is physically identical to a E5 Xeon, it just hasnt gone through validation, im talking about the people who are buying the 3930k cpus simply because it's lowers overall cost and has other benefits as well, not those trying to use an 1155 cpu as a workstation

[jmacphee9]

Nexus tablets beat the ipad in every possible aspect.
And because google itself is behind the Nexus line, the Os is perfectly optimized for them.

But ofc the ipad is better because apple made it amiright?

illl trade you my nexus 7 for an ipad then?

im an android nerd, but there is no way in my mind that anyone can say and believe that apple doesnt make the best tablet. to be fair i havent played with a surface yet, and they look amazing.

i have a 13"MBA and imo outside of gaming its a perfect laptop, its just as fast as day one with zero upkeep. apple makes the best "good" products. they dont make the best products, and many of their users are amazingly and hilariously uninformed, my favorite example is when iphones got panoramic camera, that was a big hit for the first week and i was like uhh ive had this for 4 years already on my evo 4g?

[Xl House lX]

To help continue the off topic discussion that has occurred in this thread, let me state something real quick:

My dad and mom have Samsung Galaxy S3 phones. I have used their phones and while they are nice, the backs on them are made of plastic, the touch screen is easily oiled/fingerprinted up, and I experience minor FPS drops while operating their devices. My iPhone 5, on the other hand, doesn't match up the specs of the Galaxy S3, nor does it have the NFC chip installed in it, nor does it have a large of a screen. But my iPhone has anodized aluminum for a back, a clear coat on the screen to help protect from finger prints, and while running almost all apps on my phone (about 60% of my apps on my iPhone are not made by apple) run without any FPS drops.

It just goes to tell you that specs don't really mean shit. My MacBook Pro (early 2011 edition) runs smoother than my custom built desktop PC with Windows 7 (and the desktop has 2.8 GHz quad core i7, GTX 660 Ti, 16gb Ram) as to where my Mac has a 2.1 Ghz quad i7, a Radeon 6490m, and only 4gb or Ram. My Mac is also made of aluminum and stays well cooled even during intense workloads (playing graphic intensive games, watching online videos back to back, etc.).

Just saying yeah, Windows systems will get you better specs for less money, but specs don't really matter if the software is developed well in tune with the hardware and vice versa. My Mac has so far outlasted 2 laptops from my Mom and 1 laptop from my Dad, and I just got this thing last year. :/

---------- Post added 2012-12-14 at 02:38 AM ----------

personally i've had to work on those, and on the interior they are amazing, you could win a case modder award with one bone stock, but thats about where the praise for the mac pro ends

-they are a terrible investment for the performance
-they are NOT what the "pros" use, even though most teachers think they are (actual industry uses a mix of windows and linux based render farms) which relegate -mac's to the "i wanna be taken seriously as a pro crowd"
-repairs and upgrades are lengthy and costly, (had to wait 5 months for a replacement GPU for one once)
-the OS is not as good as most other UNIX variants, and often kills legacy support way too soon
-if you build it yourself, you can build a mac pro equivalent running centOS or UBstudio for much less, enough less to by a real workstation GPU, not a "mac edition" Radeon

and when looking at their laptops, yes they are pretty and yes that are quality built, but at the end of the day, everyone knows they fall short of what you can get on the PC side when it comes to price vs performance, and laptops like Razer's Blade also challenge them on the quality and design aspect

ipads are great, however, there are better tablets, and i think the ipad line has peaked at the ipad2, andriod tablets are matching and the surfacepro will be much better than anything in the ipad line

the phones are in the same situation as the tablets, just don't use your iphone's iOS maps to find your way to Mildura, you may die

music, on the other hand apple is terrible at, my android phone plays FLAC, not ALAC, but genuine FLAC, and i didn't have to mod it, there are also much better music players out there, the problem is that most people are convinced that the ipod is the only choice


personally, i hope apple hurts for a while, i want to see the surface pro decimate the ipad, not because i hate apple, but because apple has no reason to be competitive and innovate right now, they need a surge in creativity, otherwise we are just gonna see every product redone with a increased numeral, but with no real changes other than cheaper hardware (iphone5 vs iphone 4s)

i would also like to see them get in trouble legally, they've been running around bullying other companies in court over patents, and like any schoolyard bully, they need someone to punch them in the face

You seem to be pretty intelligent, but I don't think Apple is hurting lol. The Surface Pro will never decimate the iPad because the Surface Pro has a ridiculous price tag on it. The tablet market disagrees with your statement about how iPads aren't the best, and the Mac Pros are dated. Of course they aren't up to par with current workstations. Oh and Apple is really good at music. Ever head of the iTunes Store? Yeah, they sell a shit ton of music.

You let your rage for a company (which is silly really) blind you.

[Nab]

To help continue the off topic discussion that has occurred in this thread, let me state something real quick:

My dad and mom have Samsung Galaxy S3 phones. I have used their phones and while they are nice, the backs on them are made of plastic, the touch screen is easily oiled/fingerprinted up, and I experience minor FPS drops while operating their devices. My iPhone 5, on the other hand, doesn't match up the specs of the Galaxy S3, nor does it have the NFC chip installed in it, nor does it have a large of a screen. But my iPhone has anodized aluminum for a back, a clear coat on the screen to help protect from finger prints, and while running almost all apps on my phone (about 60% of my apps on my iPhone are not made by apple) run without any FPS drops.

It just goes to tell you that specs don't really mean shit. My MacBook Pro (early 2011 edition) runs smoother than my custom built desktop PC with Windows 7 (and the desktop has 2.8 GHz quad core i7, GTX 660 Ti, 16gb Ram) as to where my Mac has a 2.1 Ghz quad i7, a Radeon 6490m, and only 4gb or Ram. My Mac is also made of aluminum and stays well cooled even during intense workloads (playing graphic intensive games, watching online videos back to back, etc.).

Specs actually DO mean shit, it's just that developers aren't utilizing any of them. You are experiencing FPS drops because most apps are just iOS ports for Android. If it were developed specifically for Android it would be smoother than iOS.

[Cyanotical]

You seem to be pretty intelligent, but I don't think Apple is hurting lol. The Surface Pro will never decimate the iPad because the Surface Pro has a ridiculous price tag on it. The tablet market disagrees with your statement about how iPads aren't the best, and the Mac Pros are dated. Of course they aren't up to par with current workstations. Oh and Apple is really good at music. Ever head of the iTunes Store? Yeah, they sell a shit ton of music.

You let your rage for a company (which is silly really) blind you.

i dont hate apple, i have plenty of apple products

however, apple is hurting, they just do a very good job of hiding it, their "macs dont get viruses" campaign has lead to two of the largest botnets found running on apple computers, including several at their own headquarters

mac pros dont beat pc workstations in price vs performance, even when they where current

when it comes to "the best" with tablets, that is relativistic, i personally have an ipad2 and a transformer, and there is a ton of stuff i can only do with the transformer, and the price on the surface pro wont stop it from selling out, its an x86 tablet, that means i can run my normal programs, instead of some poor excuse for an app trying to get the same function

and about itunes store, they do sell a shit ton, but they dont serve as much music as P2P, meaning they are not really what consumers want, and as far as MP3 players goes, the best one is the 500GB Archos5, you can check around, they are actually appreciating in value because they are discontinued and audiophiles still want them

apple does make really good products, nobody is arguing that they dont, the problem is that their products are not as good as the hype makes them out to be, they are a premium computer and gadget company, nothing more, like the Audi for technology

and they have no guidance with out Jobs, he was that company, and with him gone, it is a hollow shell of it's former self, they are riding the fad wave atm, but when that fades, they have nothing to stand on, so they are trying their hardest to make sure it doesn't fade

[Drunkenvalley]

It's hard to say if Apple are hurting or not. My personal impression is that they're milking, and will be milking, existing products with new improvements to hardware more than the software.

That said, Cyanotical, they very recently reintroduced Google Maps as an option I believe.