“Apple’s goal with professional hardware has always been to inspire creatives and developers to produce new things. That’s not an altruistic objective; the more creative things get made on Macs, the more other creatives and developers are drawn to the platform, and the more Macs are sold,” Samuel Axon writes for Ars Technica. “To that end, the iMac Pro is available to order today, so we spoke with Apple and several third-party developers who were introduced to us by Apple. We learned more about the iMac Pro and how people expect to use it to improve performance or add new features to their applications.”
“All these software applications showed that the iMac Pro’s performance can mean more than just specs on a page — or even more than just faster compile and render times,” Axon writes. “Nothing we saw demonstrated performance that couldn’t be matched by hardware from other manufacturers, but it did show that the performance bar has been raised on the Mac platform in ways that will be very relevant to people using some demanding professional applications.”
“Some of the applications also showed that Apple, a VR late bloomer, is serious about jumping on the VR content-creation bandwagon with this machine. However, when Apple is late to a party like this it usually justifies that by saying that it joined the movement only after it had constructed an experience that elevated the standards of quality above what was already in the market. That’s not the case here. All the VR applications we saw would work just as well on a comparably specced PC. In this case, Apple is just late, and there’s nothing else to it. But it’s good to see the company catching up regardless,” Axon writes. “There’s no question that the performance on display here is cutting edge—especially for an all-in-one.”
Tons more in the full article – recommended – here.
MacDailyNews Take: Apple CEO Tim Cook took his eye off the Mac and, hence, so did the rest of Apple. After much clamor, it seems Cook & Co. have refocused on the product that built their company; the product that still, despite Apple’s seeming indifference (especially on the desktop and, a convincing case could be made, in software quality control), routinely brings in billions of dollars more each quarter than the iPad.
When a company is headed by a caretaker CEO vs. a visionary founder, sometimes you end up going down blind alleys, hitting brick walls*, and are forced to play catch-up.
Anyway, thankfully, a considerable swatch of professional Mac users once again have cutting-edge performance at their disposal.
So, here’s to Apple’s re-found love of the Mac! More, please! We can’t wait to see what’s next!
*See the current Mac Pro, released four years ago on December 19, 2013.
SEE ALSO:
Apple’s iMac Pro, the most powerful Mac ever made, is now available starting at $4,999 – December 14, 2017