There should be a boycott on Apple products until A MacPro design reversal is released
The new black cylindrical MacPro is so offensive, that there should be a broad movement to temporarily boycott all of Apple products. This might sound harsh, but it is the only way to 'teach' Apple not to venture in such money grabbing offensive policies that so directly go against its user base. It is as if Apple where shooting directly at the bow of the middle class, already being squeezed enough by Obamas viciously failed healthcare policies and by the corporate outsourcing of its manufacturing facilities and jobs opportunities. You might say, "Ah, its just a computer. Get over it.". No it is not, as you will see when you consider the logistics.
The new black-cylindrical MacPro is designed to be vacuum cleaner, sucking money from the user at any possible opportunity.
1) Overly expensive SSD drive
One important 'heart' of any computer is its principal hard drive--that place where the operating system is stored, where all configuration files are kept, and (usually) where all programs are stored. A computer without a hard drive is basically worthless, as any and all work would be lost the minute you turned the machine off. With this in mind, consider that the base $3,000 model comes ONLY with a default 256 GB SSD 'card'. Considering that a small hard drive today is the 2TB drive, with 4TB being the upper range, 256 is only 1/8th this size. If you decide to upgrade it, it will cost you $800 more. If all of THAT were not bad enough, you cannot add more hard drive space. Come again?! Consider the fact that one could put 16 Terabytes INTERNALLY on the prior model. AND, if you canted to, you could even add a dual SSD holding PCIe card for only $300, and attach your prior SSDs to it for speed INTERNALLY. Apple's move is a slap on the face, that requires an immediate and equally forceful reaction.
2) Ram limitations 'proletarizes' the consumer base
Another important component is RAM--that silent space where all the thinking goes on. Apple ships the new computers with 12 GB, maxing it only to 64 GB. This sounds like a lot, and it is certainly to most people. It can be recognized that most generally do not fill the available RAM space; only under favorable financial circumstances would one install all the existing 8 SLOTS with 128 GB given that it would cost $1,500 or so. But Apple never removed that possibility, however tantalizing it was. One can certainly make the case that RAM is one of the important ingredients to speed and complexity in a computer's computations. For a historian who at times deals with thick and large image and PDF files, it was immediately clear that RAM is always important: opening and modifying a number of big images, even if just to see them, quickly saturated the available RAM space. Merely running a Virtual Machine to access important Windows programs, also sucked a great deal of memory; having two or however many computers in one required the abundance of memory, a trait that was common int he business world. Yet removing RAM slots from the computer basically is turning a 'pro-computer' into a 'consumer' computer, and drawing a sharp dividing line between 'business' end and 'consumer' end experience. There is no inherent technical need to do this, and it is certain that Steve Jobs would certainly have NOT approved of this move, leading to what might be called the "proletarization" of Apples consumer base.
3) 4K displays are an unnecessary distraction
Apples consistent emphasis on the 'looks' rather than 'functionality' can again be observed by their emphasizing 4K displays. Granted, this trend might already be common in the US consumer space, and Apple in this sense, might simply be following the route to 'where the money is'. However, for years Apple distinguished itself from other companies, PRECISELY BECAUSE IT DID NOT TO THAT, opting to open new grounds in the consumer workspace. Higher resolution simply has no functional noticeable effect for most works spaces--with the exception possibly in medicine or biology--but even then the fact that computers can simply expand images basically turns this 'eye candy' into a frivolous un-necessary costly externality, that distracts from the purpose of computers in the first place. What the emphasis suggest is that Apple's leadership simply lacks vision of where computer designs should be heading, being guided only by 'stupid money'. Oh, the tragedy. Jobs must me turning over in his grave.
4) Graphics cards-- a yet to be determined element
The incorporation of graphics cards is a recognition by Apple of the general trend of the card's increase in power and performance / efficiency curve. (This itself has been stimulated by a huge electronic game industry, often played over local area networks and/or the internet.) "Supercomputers" have been build ONLY with graphics cards, which relative to their main components can be had at a fraction of the price. Their inclusion is certainly a good move by Apple. But, as noted in many reviewed, whether they are incorporated into the Apple computing environment remains yet to be seen. By this I refer not only to software developers writing code to use them, but MORE IMPORTANTLY, APPLE GIVIN DEFAULT COMPUTING DISTRIBUTION TO THESE CARDS. This does not appear to be the case, as noted by reviewers who have tested Adobe Premier Pro (video processing software) with the computer, noting that it shows no noticeable improvement. Apple would have done a better job at INCORPORATING GRAPHICS PROCESSORS INTO ORDINARY COMPUTER PROCESSES rather that waiting for developers to do this. Failing to do this, is another point against Apple.
5) "Better cooling ?!" Give me a break
Come on. That is one of the more desperate excuses provided by the company that I have ever heard. "Air rises" you might say. Yet, but anyone who owned one of the older sunflower iMacs knows that these grills quickly became clogged with dust, dog hair, and whatever else was floating in your airspace. The very reason why the first MacPro had the design it id was for this very reason: "Better cooling". I remember the graphics demonstrating how all the various compartments kept the hot G5 MacPro cool as a whistle: generating a lot of fan noise in the process. (Consumers need to be less ninny and learn to accept the fact that you cannot have noiseless computers. In fact, the more noise the fan produces, the happier you should be as this is an indication that the hot-running processor is staying nice and cool while under pressure.)
There's only one response:
BOYCOTT ALL APPLE PRODUCTS UNTIL THE MACPRO DESIGN IS REVERTED.