I made a prediction earlier in twitter that Apple will not release update to the Mac Pro. My prediction was right. Today’s keynote didn’t reveal exciting new upgrades to the iMac or the 2013 now considerably aged Mac Pro. Only update to the Mac was a redesigned MacBook Pro with Thunderbolt 3 ports and touch bar, a touch stripe that exists where function keys used to be.
Oh man. I feel my relationship with Apple is like dating this girl who just keeps ignoring me, wanting to get rich and famous. No, I can’t see myself investing into Apple hardware in the future unless something changes. If a need for more powerful hardware arises in the future, I will invest into a PC workstation.
I have used so many Apple computers in my past and I really was a huge fan of them. What I especially loved about Apple (and still love) is their support for typography and included fonts in the OS which are so very good. And I do love Unix and pretty much everything there is to that world, the included terminal app and so on. I have made my own unix programs too, and shell scripts which I rely on daily basis. macOS is elegant operating system, I still agree with that. It’s beautiful. And there are things like Time Machine which is fantastic. The whole experience has been so much better than Windows.
So why would I switch to PC?
It is because I feel like I have been kind of betrayed.
Let’s start with software. What Apple did with Final Cut Pro or Aperture for example, really shows where their focus is. Their way of simplifying the software and dropping necessary features shows how they now care just about mainstream. Well, they killed Aperture and replaced it with this demo version kind of app that is even less featured than iPhoto was.
Final Cut Pro is still a nice application but I don’t think editing 4K in it is realistic in it no matter what kind of Mac you use because of simply the hardware requirements. Almost all my video editing friends have switched to Premiere and so did I. I don’t think Final Cut Pro is suitable for professional use for a lot of reasons, mainly just the lack of customizability and plugin support, but also just mere lack of features.
And if I am going to run Premiere, I so much more gladly do it with my PC workstation with Nvidia graphics card in it.
The hardware and lack of powerful components is a serious problem for a guy like me. I do 3D graphics and I need serious horsepower to do my job. None of the Apple’s current offerings are enough. The lack of serious graphics option (and indeed, lack of Nvidia option) is a total deal breaker for me. I rely on things like iRay, and baking large texture maps using GPU.
But it’s not just that. It’s their mentality. And seeing how horribly bad the Music app in iPhone is, I start to wonder about the future of this company to be honest. (Try running Music app in plus sized iPhone and see what I mean. The UI is like elementary school student just learned to code HTML without CSS support). This is mentality is not good for me, no, not from Apple.
Seeing Microsoft’s Surface Studio and what it means for graphics designers, it’s shocking what a pale shadow Apple’s keynote was in comparison. Only thing Apple really had to offer was the touch bar in the new notebook which otherwise don’t seem much changed form 2013. Microsoft’s announcement promised a real improvement in workflow for graphics designers and visual creators. Apple just added a new thing in what I consider to be a consumer device.
Creators want to know that company is supporting them and making sure that our hardware and software works and meets our requirements. I don’t think Apple has any interest serve the needs of serious creators and professionals.
//end Apple rant