“Anticipation was higher than usual – and it always runs to feverish – when the press and other interested parties made their way to California’s Silicon Valley last September for the latest Apple keynote presentation,” Nick Compton writes for Wallpaper*. “The most titanic of the valley’s tech titans was due to unveil its most significant update to the iPhone since its launch, ten years previous. In that time the iPhone has upended industries and transformed how we do just about everything. The update was a big deal. But most of the golden ticket holders were as excited about where they were as what they were about to see.”
“This was the first up-close mass sighting of the most talked-about new building in the world, a $5bn, or so it’s said, Foster + Partners-designed loop of glass, aluminium, limestone and concrete and Apple’s new HQ,” Compton writes. “Drones have buzzed over this site during much of its construction, and of course there were renders. Still, nothing prepares you for its audacious mass. Or its sci-fi drama. It is, as was promised, a giant starship landed in Cupertino.”
“The keynote is taking place in the new Steve Jobs Theater, itself a small marvel of engineering, ingenuity and attention to detail. ‘If the overall project is a small town, then this is the town hall, and jewel,’ says Stefan Behling, a Foster + Partners partner and one of the lead architects on Apple Park,” Compton writes. “Behling’s excitement and pride in the theatre and its big brother are palpable and genuine. But he is quick to acknowledge that at every stage this was a collaborative project. ‘Everything in this theatre, every detail, everything you see around you, is a totally integrated collaboration with Jony Ive [Apple’s chief design officer] and his design studio. Over the last nine years, we have become almost one. We talk together all the time, sit and sketch. This is not a Foster + Partners building.’”
“In truth, there is little point speculating about what Apple will do next, or whether it will finally silence those who insist it needs to come up with another game-changing product. And less point asking Ive. I tried. Did the company lose something fundamental with the passing of Steve Jobs? Of course,” Compton writes. “And the completion of Apple Park at once memorialises Jobs and looks to embed the most positive parts of his terrible ambition, making them corporate muscle memory and learnt behaviour. Ive would be as fundamental a loss but he is still there, at the heart of the machine, still building, still making, still learning.”
Tons more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Again, the sooner they get in there and can focus on the core tasks at hand (Apple’s products and services), not office space, the better – for the company and for their customers.
As Apple CEO, Steve Jobs focused on two things – product design and marketing. He was a genius at both. His talents cannot be replaced with one person. In fact, his talents in either discipline cannot be replaced by one person. Jony Ive and Phil Schiller without Jobs cannot be expected to perform as if Jobs was still working with them.
A team of people – talented people who actually get it and who are all on the same page – is an absolute necessity for Apple’s success, but it creates a problem: Jobs was a single filter. A unified mind. The founder. A group of people simply cannot replicate that. This is not to say that they cannot do great work (we believe Apple does, and will continue, to do great work) just that Apple is fundamentally affected by the loss of Steve Jobs and has to figure out a new way to work. — MacDailyNews, April 8, 2014
Get the dam Mac Pro out the door.
Yes the vastly overdue and mismanaged Mac Pro that is. Nearly 4 years since last major upgrade and counting. Why does my Spidey Sense say Dec. 31, 2018 for the “2018” Mac Pro release?
Talk, talk, talk. Sh*t, get to work, Apple.
Agreed. It is time for Apple to deliver on new desktop models. Based on previous statements, I suspect that the Mac Pro will be released in the first quarter of calendar year 2018 (Apple’s second fiscal quarter).
I would hope that a completely reworked Mac mini would be released by then, as well, but who knows?
In the meantime, I believe that Apple promised to release the massively multicore iMac Pro by the end of the calendar year. I will be looking forward to that release to get an idea of some of the technologies that might find their way into the Mac Pro.
Open plan nightmare. Shudder.
as usual he doesn’t talk Mac, hasn’t mentioned Mac I guess in like 5 years.
you know the computing devices that just made them 7 billion dollars last quarter (vs 4.8 b iPad and TWICE Watch, TV, AirPods, Beats, iPod, Watch Bands and other accessories COMBINED) (Macs which they don’t bother to MARKET btw, no ads).
when people go into the New Chicago Showcase store they are going to see Macs not updated from 2013, and they are going to wonder “is this a STORE or a MUSEUM?”.
They even tried pushing eGPUs at Apple developers because apparently YOU CAN’T EVEN WRITE OR DESIGN NEW APPLE VR SOFTWARE WITH STOCK MACS as they are so underpowered.
They haven’t updated some of their Macs. those they have are often underpowered, Macs their second largest hardware money maker yet Ive is OOZING over Door Handles (one and half years to design them according to Reuters), Glass Planes , floor tiles etc, I thought Apple was a COMPUTING COMPANY not a CONSTRUCTION CONTRACTOR.
Imagine Ford had brand new state of the art showrooms but trucks from 2013 they are trying to sell as NEW….
Seconded
Didn’t think Ford had designed anything particularly new or relevant in years, probably why the company that practically owned my old home town has become to all intents and purposes irrelevant sadly here. We all used have a laugh about the ‘Dagenham dustbins’ they used to produce and engines that would act like an alarm clock getting you up on dark winter nights as they took 5 minutes to actually fire… if at all. I do digress but does bring back some stories. Amusingly I remember an ex girlfriend who had an Escort which had continuous engine problems and her father who worked for Ford as an engineer in the Special Engineering Section at Dunton (then described as the most advanced automotive development centre in Europe). He could never solve the problems with that engine, gave up and told her to dump it. The look of defeat on his face was a classic. Great days but really Ford are a really bad comparison to Apple in any imaginable demographic.
you know what I’m getting at with the Ford statement so your argument is specious.
but just going on your trek..
(so using your facts to my point) : would it make Ford’s (already bad according to you) reputation BETTER or WORSE if they tried to sell a 2013 truck as NEW ?
So if you were Ford’s CEO you think that would be a GOOD idea to sell 2013 model vehicles (Apple STILL has 2013 Macs on their website) without updating them ?
These days he is generally rolled out only on occasions of note, I dare say he will when finally new Macs are released for a brief recce. As Apple rarely say much or anything about new unreleased products that is to be expected especially when he is mostly involved with its look and feel which is never publicly talked about in the remotest detail until they launch or preview. And additionally he is coming into retirement mode and while he is no doubt payed a fortune to stay on-board I suspect that he is increasingly hands off now being low profile so that when he does leave if it ever becomes official it wont be exploited as another terminal shock for Apple and its share price as the SJ one was portrayed for years.
Finally I suspect that SJ wanted him to bring the Spaceship to fruition in a way he was proud of and being so close I think he has felt obliged as well as it being the culmination of his own work at Apple to carry out his close friends wishes. After so much stellar work for the company, after all together they saved and then made it what it is now, I for one am not going to make crass comments about a guy who has achieved so much and deserves to be able to move on as and when appropriate. But I guess others have their own agenda.
so what about the furniture for charities, the coffee table book, the Christmas tree… etc.
also can’t Ive like do BOTH? he couldn’t have ASSIGNED SOMEONE TO WORK ON THE PRO AND THE MINI ETC ?
Go read my reply to Paul for more detail.
but here I just want to say :
— Over the years Apple marketed hard towards Pros (that’s what buying FCP, Aperture, having Photoshop Mac vs PC shoot-outs etc were about). For years (the 10 years before iMac) it was graphics pros who kept Apple Alive when most consumers went cheaper PC. Listening to Apple and their promises of commitment Pros spent a lot of money on the eco system (some tens or hundreds of thousands) , from hardware to software to Mac Staff.
Then after ‘marketing hard’ Apple basically abandoned many of the Pro and high end users, like I’ve written (more detail in the post below) for a period of several years there wasn’t even an eGPU solution available (the Cylinder has TB2 which is too slow). There was NO WORKAROUND (unlike obsoleting iPod because you had iPhone for example) for GPU except hackintosh or upgrading old cheese graters…
Apple like I said marketed and MADE PROMISES to pros that they are ‘in’ the pro market, then by neglecting updates they put our businesses, (our PC competitors had machines that had GPUs , processors that were more than twice as fast ) our livelihoods and that of our staffs and families in jeopardy. People tell us STFU and go windows, is it so easy? Buy all new equipment for the new OS (instead of just upgrading certain obsolete ones ) , fire or retrain staff, have our businesses on hold while we do all that (how long to change an entire office workflow to windows, the cost)? YOU WANT TO GIVE SOME MAC BUSINESS SEVERAL HUNDRED THOUSAND $ TO SWITCH TO WINDOWS ?
Mac users have been busily , desperately trying to put hackintosh or upgrade cheese grater MPs to keep going.
So you think not updating, Apple basically breaking the Consumer/Providers tacit agreement and trust (as like i said they ‘sold us a marketing story’ ) is OK? Tim Cook is ALWAYS TALKING ABOUT ETHICS, so this is ETHICAL? or does Apple/Cook/Ive’s ethics ONLY APPLY TO OUTSIDERS but for Apple CONSUMERS WHEN THE ALMIGHTY DOLLAR (market share) comes into place it’s big F-U ? Makes T.C soapboxing kind of shallow huh?
Apple brutally without REAL reason (I doubt that the desktop TOWERS lost money just made less) did it to many pros , damaged businesses, staff , families without conscience and you say my comments above to the head of hardware design Ive who is happily designing Christmas trees is ‘crass’?
seriously ?
but please quit ranting and YELLING!
Moan moan moan. I just picked up an iMac (i7, AMD 580, 3TB fusion, 64GB) it simply flies through all the video an photo editing I have thrown at it.
At the same time I have got back so much desk space. This thing is razor thin it unbelievable. The display is amazing.
And yes, for the 1% of 1% of customers that need to simulate atom interaction in a fusion reactor, it can support external graphics because it has fast powerful interfaces. What developer needs to do this? None, when all apps need to run on an iPhone or an iPad anyway and a tiny .01% when they are developing for a …….god knows who.
don’t really want to argue with you all about most of the stuff (I’ve hashed over deep detail in other posts but just to show how off base you all are, I’ll just mention eGPU … )
just go read all the stuff about eGPU’s Apple talked about at WWDC.
Apple even has it’s own EXTERNAL DEVELOPMENT KIT Webpage where they are SELLING to REGISTERED DEVELOPERS the kit for $599:
https://developer.apple.com/development-kit/external-graphics/
(WTF do you do you think they are doing this if it’s not necessary ?Does Apple think there’s so many people that’s trying to “simulate atom interaction” ??)
Do you think when T.C is talking about VR CHANGING THE FUTURE is just to play a few low end iOS games ? i.e Apple expects VR to be big and they want developers to work on the most complex stuff including entire VR environments etc.
APPLE: ” The External Graphics Development Kit includes everything you need to start optimizing advanced VR and 3D apps on external graphics processors with macOS High Sierra”
———————
I HAVE A 6 YEAR OLD CHEESE GRATER MP WITH A GTX 980 TI.
here a 6 year old machine in GPU vs your AMD 580 you are gushing about :
According to USER BENCHMARKS:
GTX 980 Ti is 41% faster than the AMD 580.
GAME FPS for League of Legends of the 980 ti x is 305 fps vs AMD 580 it’s 176 fps
Light Handling:
Peak lighting effects GTX 980 ti : 68% better
Peak Reflection : 72% better etc.
with a newer card:
BAREFEATS BENCHMARKS: 2010 MP with GTX 1080 vs 580 iMAC:
Da Vinci Resolve: MP: 33.1 FPS vs iMac : 22.3
LuxMark Open CL : MP : 16963 vs iMac: 13625
Heaven Open GL Benchmark : MP : 60.9 vs iMac 27.2
Tomb Raider FPS : MP : 105 fps vs iMac 72
etc etc
DO YOU SEE THAT? 2010 UPGRADED MP ARE NOT JUST SLIGHTLY AHEAD BUT TRASHED YOUR IMAC SIGNIFICANTLY IN GPU?
The Astonishing thing is that the GTX 980 Ti I have is an OLD CARD, I can pop it out and load a newer 1000 series like the Barefeats.com test card into my MP. Which you can’t with any current Mac including the cylinder. You can load in WITHOUT THE EXTRA COST OF A EGPU BOX.
I do stuff running two big monitors that require GPU and until recently with TB3 you COULD NOT EVEN USE EGPUs on Macs properly (the Cylinder has TB2) so for a few years there users were left abandoned by Apple. Without eGPUs not a single Mac today including yours is in the GPU big leagues.
gwad, why do I bother, I think I’ve wasted 15 minutes of my life again.
I get it. You are happy with your purchase. Wonderful! However, some folk (and more than 0.1%) do want a Mac Pro with maximum power, functionality, scalability, and upgradable. Having the most technologically advanced desktop computer isn’t for EVERYBODY but it is a product many people will use and it is a statement of Apple’s commitment to design and development. Do you understand?
I up voted you King Khan. Agree 100% “statement of Apple’s commitment to design”.
(In the other forum where I put the ‘question marks ???” to your post i just wasn’t sure your direction –wasn’t trying to criticize — , but here I agree with you.)
I am a Apple FAN and investor.
(mac pros : Three upgraded Cheese graters for my personal use, MBP, iPad Pro 12.9 etc)
I’ve praised the iPhone X and defended it against Samsung trolls etc. i just expect Apple to have the SAME high standards for ALL products including Macs.
Apple should (or try their hardest) to be the BEST IN CATEGORY in all product lines.
I remember Jobs running shoot-outs between Macs and PCs and the audience counting 1-2-3…. for the seconds extra the PC took to do something (i.e trashed by the Mac) and PC magazine listed several Macs as best WINDOWS machines.
We need to go back to those times.
(today if you look at Geekbench site where they got stats from thousands of user macs all the top macs in power are Hackintosh machines !! )
I don’t believe Steve Jobs would have tolerated a 2013 ‘flagship’ Mac being sold on their website as ‘new’. (Just from a PR point of view it’s damaging).
Today some game developers say most Macs are not even powerful enough to play their games, VR simulations etc, even MBP owners (I have one) have to turn the games to medium or lower res to play games adequately on big monitors. Absurd.
the new iMac is great mid range machine but in no way is it the highest end possible. (the iMac Pro is still missing).
And like I’ve often pointed Macs make money and is not dying as too many claim. they make more than iPad and twice all the other hardware like AirPods, TV, Watch, Beats , iPod combined.
—–
one reason I keep ‘ranting’ is that i hope my extreme rants will register to some of the 100,000 apple staff and they would push the ideas UP. I don’t ever see Apple SVPs visiting Mac using businesses, schools, Mac user groups, games conventions etc like they visit fashion shows and rock concerts so they seem to have ‘lost touch’ (although recently they claim to be asking for feedback)
I don’t really like arguing with other Apple fans over Apple stuff (that’s why I keep off the politics threads as much as I can) but the Mac problems need to be advocated.
much more reasonably presented.
I daresay that most people on this forum agree with the key elements of your argument. You don’t need to blow a gasket.
So, what’s new?
Apple has been a phone company for quite a while.
No surprise.
Ive? Irrelevant person of the past.
I do love people who consider themselves important and informed enough to make comments like that about people who have more creativity thoughts reading a newspaper than most have done in their whole working lives. I guess people are laying off with their personal Cook insights for a bit these days and looking for a new target. Its amusing if nothing else of any worth.
That’s a pretty lame excuse, spy. Maybe other people see and understand things you will never comprehend.
Yup, Apple’s essentially a one trick pony and that nag is getting old in the tooth.
Where’s my new iMac Pro due this month??
If Ive spent as much time designing and developing as he does working on his sound bites just imagine what Apple would be offering.