“For the moment, I am living the life of a tech one-percenter,” Molly Wood writes for The New York Times. “Atop my desk sits a shiny (and I do mean shiny) new Mac Pro. It’s Apple’s top-of-the-line desktop computer, aimed at, as the name implies, the creative professionals who have always relied on Macs for video, graphics, music and photo manipulation. It makes everything around it look vaguely slower. It also makes me want to increase my homeowner’s insurance, in case of a break-in. The Mac Pro is daring, extravagant and elite — or maybe it’s just for the elite.”
“Its affect is deeply futuristic: It looks like a device that might project a hologram, or generate its own singularity. Its blenderlike size makes it suitable for sitting atop a desk, particularly a Lucite desk in an ultramodern sparse loft, or on black aluminum in an ultra-stylish ad agency, graphic design shop or documentary film studio,” Wood writes. “The Mac Pro is extremely, ridiculously fast and powerful. The specifications are nearly mythical. The model Apple lent me has an eight-core Intel processor; you can max out at 12. It has 64 gigabytes of extremely fast memory (most computers have four, eight or maybe 16); two AMD graphics cards that, purchased separately, cost $800 each; and a luxurious and fast one-terabyte solid-state hard drive. As configured, and without a monitor or even a keyboard and mouse, which are not included, the Mac Pro sitting on my desk rings in at $8,099. Shipping is free.”
Read more in the full review here.
I wonder what the real speed difference between the FirePro D700 all the reviewers are getting and the D300 is. I am an ex-video editor (I have a different vocation now) so I opted for the low end model.
No need to think , it is screamingly fast !!
She thinks its fast like a Ferrari, made for rich folks and it can’t cut it in F1? What is video editing F1 anyway – she doesn’t say?
What she is though is someone who really only looks at technology through PC lenses. She just doesn’t get it!
Amazing. The NYT finds a way to bash Apple, no matter how incompetent it makes them look.
And they don’t have comments enabled for that article so no chance for criticism or discussion. Nice.
It’s a bad review
She doesn’t seem to be a ‘real’ techie like Pogue or Mossberg. (Pogue I believe left NYT recently to do other stuff or something?). A tech writer who needs to “call in friend’ to help with the testing (and it’s even a complex thing like analyzing the chip or some Anand Tech sh*t like that but just running hi def video !).
She says : ” the price is far more “pro” than “sumer.” In car terms, the new Mac Pro is like a Ferrari or a Maserati. It’s gorgeous, sexy and powerful, and a few rich people will probably buy one in order to go fast. But that doesn’t mean it could cut it in Formula One.”
What she’s implying that the Mac Pro is ‘Pro Price’ but not as good as ‘real pro rigs’ without pointing out what a ‘real F1 rig is’. She’s perpetuating the myth that Mac Pro is overpriced and ‘real rigs’ (PCs?) etc are cheaper. But we know even from DIY PC sites that even build your own PC equivalents (where the labour is free) are thousands more expensive at the high end and that pro video reviewers say that the Mac Pro is screaming fast doing video.
Personally I think even Windows pros are going to buy these babies and load windows just like many now use MacBooks.
(btw I typing this on my old cheese grater mac pro)
She also wrote, ” It has 64 gigabytes of extremely fast memory (most computers have four, eight or maybe 16).” “Gigabytes?’ D-uhhh…
?
typo
“and it’s even a complex thing ” should be “and it’s NOT even “
lol, “shipping is free.”
If you read the review she calls the system fast early on, then basically claims the 8 core model she got is no faster than the previous 4 core model. She says they couldn’t play back large video files without stuttering. This is Molly Wood though, and she’s not known for being technically savvy. I wouldn’t be surprised if they had faulty Final Cut settings, and we’re playing the video off a USB drive.
I feel as if many people are basically upset with the cost. So they are trying to convince themselves and everyone around them that the machine is not that great of an upgrade, all so they can be happy with what they can afford.
They remind me of people who say, “So what the new Mustang Gt does 0 to 60 in 4.9 seconds. My car does it in 8 seconds, so it’s only 3 seconds faster. You pay a lot for those 3 seconds.”
As for the MacPro being compared to a Ferrari or Maserati – ignoring for a moment the fact the only true morons try their hand at car analogies, I’d rather compare it with a fully spec’ed Mercedes G-class SUV (AMG version).
The price of both is beyond the reach of the average consumer, but both have their uses and a loyal customer-base 😉
A Ferrari or a Maserati is just for show, though – which would do the MacPro injustice.
I thought that it was ironic that she nullified the pro nature of the Mac Pro in that she “forgot” to mention that the processor are Pro grade, Xeon not a Core i7 and also the GPU’s which she described as “AMD’s” are again pro grade FireGL’s not Radeons’s
This “omission” is of course because Apple haters are creating consumer grade systems out of i7s and Radeons and then claiming them “equivalent” at 1/2 or less the price of the Mac Pro.
(because they can’t actually build an equivalent system for anywhere near that price)
Comparing “gamer rigs” with real workstations is always folly, but the author twists the irony at the end when she chides the Mac pro for not being Pro enough (the F1 & FCPX being “pretty” digs)
It is amusing, in a way, to watch the apple haters twist their logic round in circles to attempt to justify their pre determined conclusions.
The correct analogy is to suggest that the Mac Pro is a Kenworth or Peterbuilt truck compared to a typical car or small truck.
I hear a lot of lamentations over the fact that the Mac Pro is not internally expandable, but I don’t see what the problem is. The reason for internal expansion was that in the past, things worked faster that way, but in this case, that’s not a consideration. All that remains are the benefits of external expansion: you can change the configuration more easily, practically at whim, and without opening cases and losing screws.
They also didn’t have Thunderbolt in the past.
PC=er’s are use to Windows box assemblers making inferior products, thus the need to go inside and fix everything themselves.
Of course, you can’t buy Apple software for your Mac Pro. It’s all being rebuilt from the ground up to be as stunning as Medusa, groundbreaking as a gravedigger, and simple as Forrest Gump, so it can run on an iPhone. (Exhibit A: the stupidification of iWork). Mac Pro purchasers take heed.
However, don’t let that deter you. There is plenty of excellent, professional third-party software to satisfy a Mac Pro owner.
Did you make those metaphors up? Very funny!
Yes, I did make up those metaphors in the hope that people would use them.
If I hear Tim Cook say “rebuilt from the ground up,” “groundbreaking,” “simple,” or “stunning,” my skin will crawl. After iWork, those phrases aren’t usable any more.
I’m also feeling a little anxiety about OS X Renegades (0r whatever the successor to Mavericks will be called.) Will it be a port of iOS 7 to the Mac? If it even looks like iOS 7, many people won’t be able to use it just because of its colors: Walk-into-the-Light White, Retina-Grating Green, Invisible Ink Blue, and Prostitute Pink.
Excuse me — pink is one of my colours. 😉
But I do like your idea to replace Cupertino’s poverty of superlatives with funny similes. Well realised!
(I rather think they were similes, not metaphors… the nit picker strikes again…)
http://knowgramming.com/metaphors/metaphor_and_simile_difference.htm.com/metaphors/metaphor_and_simile_difference.htm