For Jeff: Apple Computers For The Unemployed & MacBook Wheel

[Guest ___]

 

 

Thought you'd like this one.

[bill937ca]

That's it!  Get a Toshiba at Best Buy! 

[Martijn Meerts]

Seen the macbook wheel one before, very well made, and I'm pretty sure Steve can convince the fanboys to buy the thing :)

 

As for the other one.. Just a high-cost version of the daily mac vs. pc going on everywhere.

[Guest ___]

I went down to Georgetown to the Apple Store earlier today with my camera. I had an appointment with them to gauge my needs. I'm going Mac Pro. I killed (not literally, but rather got the thing to hang up and freeze a few times)  a iMac today at the Store, lol. The iMac couldn't handle a mass import of 115 NEF files in to Aperture from my Nikon D2Xs so there's no way unit is going to survive a mass import of a few hundred NEF files from the Coast Guard's D3s or the new D3x they issued me. The D3x replaces the D3 that a PO2 dropped in to the bay last week :( I loved that camera. ) The Apple rep scratched his head and said, "Strange, it should have handled those ok." So, he said before we did anything else that I should bring in some NEF files from the D3x next week and see how the other computers will do. He thoguht maybe it was a fluke, but rather risk it, the rep said he wanted to try again with the bigger files.

 

Martjin, below is a copy of the build I tried at the Apple store.

[Martijn Meerts]

That machine should definitely be able to handle such a small amount of files...

 

Back when I was still on the Sony a100 I used Lightroom, which never gave me any problems with importing many files from the camera (around 150 raw files of 15Mb each), and now with the Sony a700 and Aperture 3, I have no issues either (did about 100 raw files of 20-25Mb each) . Even my new Macbook Air can easily handle importing lots of raw files, even on a beta OS :)

 

A Mac Pro shouldn't actually make a difference. Aperture doesn't use all cores, neither do any of the Adobe apps, and in fact, many Apple apps still don't either (Final Cut for example). Many of the Adobe apps are also still running as 32bit because they're all written using the Carbon framework rather than the Cocoa framework, and there's no 64bit version of Carbon. 32bit app means of course it can't use more than a little of 3Gb of memory. The processors in the current iMac is actually faster than the ones in the Mac Pro. The ones in the Mac Pro are more geared towards really heavy computing tasks such as rendering 3d scenes with tons of ray traced shadowing etc. Image manipulation is a fairly easy operation on the CPU (and with OpenCL, programs can use the GPU for it as well, which makes it even easier on the CPU). Memory in the iMac is also faster than the quad core Mac Pro's.

 

All that said, I love my Mac Pro, but I was lucky in that I bought it before they raised the price. I got my 8 core for the same price as what the quad core costs now, and I even added memory and a more expensive graphics card to mine. The Mac Pro's have really gotten expensive the last couple of years. Of course, mine is going towards 4 years old, and it still handles everything I throw at it with easy, and the only thing I ever had to replace was the graphics card, which died due to my own doing :)

[Guest ___]

The Apple Store Guy said it should have worked as well, but the import froze a few times. I had hoped they would have LR 3.3 on one of the machines but they didn't. The files were about 23mb each, but the D3x files are going to be closer 35mb. Also keep in mind that under a Coast Guard workflow, it can be as many as 250+ images. If it is a trip abroad then the workflow will be what ever the max number of images I can get on the card. Work flow from Japan last year was well over 1200, and I had t import in some ten separate work flows.

[KenS]

Something wasn't right with that iMac.  My old dual-core Macbook Pro from 2008 routinely sucked in 20-30 RAW+JPEG images from a Canon 40D using Aperture, at 12.7 MB per photo. It had 2GB of RAM (and admittedly a 7200 rpm disk, which does help compared to the default 5400 rpm ones).  You're ultimately limited by the USB more than anything, and a modern i3 chip has CPU to spare compared to my old dual-core.

 

Aperture does spend some cycles building its thumbnail and preview images, but that's asynchronous to the import (i.e., it will keep "building previews" with a little spinning-wheel indicator on part of the screen, well after the actual import completes on an older machine, although my current 2011 Macbook Pro doesn't seem to pause at all).

 

250+ images of 35GB won't be fast, and even an i3 may take some time to process them post-import. But I wouldn't expect it to freeze mid-import.  That suggests something else was running in the background (Apple does run background software on their store computers, or some previous visitor might have left something running).

 

Martijn, Aperture will use all of the cores (and then some) for certain tasks.  A few weeks ago I had my new 4-core MBP rebuild all previews for the several thousand images in my library.  I leave Activity Monitor running in bar-graph mode (which has 8 bars on the 4-core chip due to hyperthreading) and for the first time ever I saw all 8 "cpus" going flat out (I don't know that that even means, as you shouldn't be able to get 8 above 50%, but that's what it showed, maybe its 100% is calibrated without the "turbo"). Whatever, certain operations are threaded well for parallel processing.

[Guest ___]

Well, we restarted the unit twice, and the first thing the Apple guy did was shut down all the background TSR's ahead of time. 

[keitaro]

My opinion only but apple is rubbish I only got the iPhone cause my work gave it to me for free.

 

The phone is rubbish. I work for a telco and it's the biggest piece of rubbish the networks all know it but sell it cause there is too many fan boys and sheep.

 

Although I have no problem with the iPod it does the job nicely.

[Martijn Meerts]

The Apple Store Guy said it should have worked as well, but the import froze a few times. I had hoped they would have LR 3.3 on one of the machines but they didn't. The files were about 23mb each, but the D3x files are going to be closer 35mb. Also keep in mind that under a Coast Guard workflow, it can be as many as 250+ images. If it is a trip abroad then the workflow will be what ever the max number of images I can get on the card. Work flow from Japan last year was well over 1200, and I had t import in some ten separate work flows.

 

The place I used to work at in Norway had various photo studio's to take pack shots and images of food (ingredients and completed dishes). They used really high quality camera's (the kind you keep in a safe when not in use) that would output 50mb files. Just before I left they got a new one that came close to 100mb per file. The only machines ever used there were Macs, mainly Mac Pro's. Never had any issues with any imports or working with the images in general.

 

 

Martijn, Aperture will use all of the cores (and then some) for certain tasks.  A few weeks ago I had my new 4-core MBP rebuild all previews for the several thousand images in my library.  I leave Activity Monitor running in bar-graph mode (which has 8 bars on the 4-core chip due to hyperthreading) and for the first time ever I saw all 8 "cpus" going flat out (I don't know that that even means, as you shouldn't be able to get 8 above 50%, but that's what it showed, maybe its 100% is calibrated without the "turbo"). Whatever, certain operations are threaded well for parallel processing.

 

Ah, maybe they've fixed that in Aperture 3, I seem to remember Aperture 2 never using all cores. Hyperthreading often throws machines a bit off. Basically, it's possible to see 100% usage on all 8 "cores", but those cores are generally only running at some 50% even if they report 100%. It's always a bit weird :)

 

 

My opinion only but apple is rubbish I only got the iPhone cause my work gave it to me for free.

 

The phone is rubbish. I work for a telco and it's the biggest piece of rubbish the networks all know it but sell it cause there is too many fan boys and sheep.

 

Although I have no problem with the iPod it does the job nicely.

 

Just wondering, why do you think Apple is rubbish? Are you basing it just on the fact that you don't like the iPhone, or have you actually worked on Macs for any extended period of time?

 

My personal experience with the iPhone is that it's the most stable phone I've owned, it's never given me any problems. Even installing beta version of the OS on it never causes major issues. I work as a mobile developer doing both web and native stuff, and there too it's much more comfortable working for iOS than for Android, WebOS or Windows Phone. I also don't have a case for the phone, yet there's no scratches on the screen, and only some minor scratches on the back. (I have the 3Gs, which is getting close to 2 years old now. My Nokia's, Ericssons, Samsungs and HTC's never lasted that long :))

 

I actually quite dislike the iPod.. I used to have a nano, which I sold after a month because of the terrible sound quality. I also have a 1st and 4th generation touch, both for development purposes. Sound quality is just as crap on those as the nano. Of course, it depends on what one compares it too, and perceived sound quality differs for everyone.

 

I'm not saying people aren't allow to dislike Apple, just wondering why you think it's rubbish. (I usually like to hear reasoning behind statements like "Apple is rubbish", "Ford only makes crap", "made in China is always bad", etc. etc. Especially since there are still people who state the Mac is crap because it has a single-button mouse ......)

[KenS]

A Mac (or iPhone, or whatever) is a tool.  Like any tool it's more appropriate for some uses, and less so for others.  Leaving personal taste aside, although that is an important factor when spending your own money, the utility of a Mac will depend on how an individual weights a number of factors for their individul use.

 

I've been using a Mac for 25 years, and for work for the past 15.  I'm clearly biased here.  I tend to weight performance, reliability and predictable behavior over cost and application selection.  Which is not to say that non-Macs can't be higher in performance than a Mac, or reliable, just that getting the whole bundle together isn't common.  I've worked with a number of people using high-quality windows machines from good name brands that were overall less reliable than my systems over the years. 

 

I also have a very limited set of requirements for the most part.  When I wanted a high-level gaming computer a few years back, I built a PC and ran Windows on it.  In fact, over the years I've probably bought a half-dozen Windows licenses, to fit niche needs in a virtual machine or on a system optimized for gaming.

 

The same can be said for a number of other application types.  The Wintel world (specific hardware and application support) is better suited to meeting needs that don't fit into the general model of office apps, email and browsers, or one of Apple's targeted areas (and even there, the choice of Lightroom versus Aperture is as much a matter of individual preferences and specific capability needs as anything; I've read well-thought-out arguments in favor of both).

 

Similarly, the iPhone is a great phone for many things (I have one), but frankly for hands-free in-car use it's inferior to the Motorola flip-phone with built-in voice recognition I had eight years ago.  Ever had an IM or a calender reminder pop up in the middle of a conference call and need to read micro-type (while driving) to figure out what it was and how to dismiss it so you could use the virtual keyboard to hit the mute button?  And why should I have to buy an app from someone else to get voice recognition?  That won't stop me from buying another iPhone when this one wears out, because overall I consider it a good organizer/phone combo, and it beats carrying both a phone and a Palm hands-down.

 

Apple (Macs and OSX) isn't without it's own problems. Apple doesn't always follow it's own guidelines, which undercuts the consistency aspect.  And when they do have hardware or software problems, they're very slow to admit them and take responsibility.

 

Good or bad for any computer, or any other tool for that matter, depends on the application and individual preference. And individual experience is something of a statistical matter: some people have had multiple unreliable Macs,  And some have used cheap Wintel boxes loaded with "demo" sofware without problems. Any general statement is, implicitly or explicitly, based on a set of assumptions about which of those factors matter more.  I try to avoid general statements since I know there will always be others who don't share my set of assumptions and experience.

 

But Windows is still junk. 

[Guest ___]

Well, I'm a Linux man myself, use Windows cause well, it's the standard. I had Apples when I was a kid cause my father was a teacher, and Apple was all teachers used. When I started working in the press, we only used Apples. then one day Dell came along, looked at Apple's markup looked at company and school system budgets and started making deals with the newspapers and the schools that they could sell 3 or 4 PC's at the same cost as a single Mac and it would perform the same to the end user (the end user not caring about spec sheets) The rest is history. My last Mac was a PowerPC, and we had to pull the plug out of the wall to power down as it had no physical power switch, yet it never had sufficient memory (or resources) to shut down. Seriously, select power down from the menu, and the same error would always appear, "Insufficient system resources to perform this operation) even if there was nothing else running or after a fresh boot.

 

So one day, years alter, I ended up with a 2G iPod Shuffle to replace a dead iRiver MP3 player, and it worked well for two years. (I still use it as my MP3 player for my Jeep) Then one day JEff boguht his iPod Touch, and within a week of playing with his, I had to have one. Then I realized it was such a drag to carry around an iPod Touch and my LG enV2 cellphone. there was so much redundancy between the two and m,y Verizon contract came due so I decided to combine them and go with an iPhone 4, and I gave my father the iPod Touch. My mother got jealous and bought one herself as did my sister. Father decided to replace his HP with a Mac Mini, his first Mac in ten years. Nearly a year later, just got an iPad 2 for my father. I do not see Apple as being a cult, but rather more like the plaque.

[Hobby Dreamer]

But Windows is still junk

 

You got that right!

 

When Windows 7 came out it seemed for the first time that an MS product was getting the same type of hype as Apple. What a let down!

 

I recently got an iPad. I have zero Apple experience but there are some features that I really like. I wonder if its because the hardware is standardized. On the other hand, there is a definite "Apple culture" that I have not yet bought into. Apps are inexpensive but its hard to get good comparative info before buying.

 

Around the time the iPad2 was released the buzz was about hacking the OS/USB port to allow other software/hardware access. (obviously too much time on peoples hands - there are close to 100,000 apps).

 

With an MS product the buzz is usually about a major flaw! (When is the next Service Pack coming etc..)

 

I do giggle whenever I open the cover and the system immediately starts.

 

There are a lot of tablet products out there or soon to be released but Apple has an intuitive interface, a large fan base (therefore many apps) and its able to do non-Apple designed tasks without too much effort.

 

I figure its a browser, a very small portable laptop, a reader, a tool for porting Netflix etc to one's HDTV without too much hassle, a GPS, a tool for learning music, a tool for playing music (a la iPod), a camera phone, a portable photo editor etc and the list goes on....

 

On the other hand, I can understand Apple critics: there is more sizzle than steak. (That may also be true of Wintel, but you already know the meat is bad! So you are happy as long as its minimal damage).

 

I figure tablets are the way to go.. You save on book costs, on storage of books, on printing costs (to have something in your hands to read) and so on.  Its refreshing not to hear the cooling fans or to worry about dust etc..

 

Best of all, you gotta love touch screens!!!

[Martijn Meerts]

What Apple has done well, is make it easy to code simple, native apps for the iPhone. Xcode and the Cocoa Touch framework are great to get stuff up and the running fast, and the simulator is incredibly fast as well, so it's easy to test and bug fix things. The only disadvantage is that Xcode and the iOS SDK are a 4Gb download, and you need to re-download the entire package with each new version.

 

Compared to the Android SDK and the Windows Phone SDK, the iOS SDK is just miles and miles ahead. The Android SDK uses the Eclipse IDE, which is based on Java and terribly slow. The Android simulator is also awfully slow. What's worse though, there are already too many devices with too many different specs and screen sizes, and it's impossible for developers to test everything. Same goes for Windows Phone, too many different specs and screen sizes already, and the simulator is practically not usable. Their IDE is excellent though (Visual Studio is still pretty much the best IDE for development, although Xcode 4 is real nice as well)

 

 

For games, I actually just use Boot Camp and run Win7 on my Mac Pro. Runs just fine, and it's plenty fast for the games I play :) I also use Windows for accurate CD-rips, because there's still no decent, secure CD-ripper for OS X that's good enough for backing up CD's (Talking about bit-accurate CD-rips saved to FLAC for archival purposes)

[Hobby Dreamer]

Thanks Martijn for sharing your knowledge...

 

..makes me feel better about my purchase..  I may try app development as a way to keep the Spider senses tingling!

 

The iPad resolution is good enough but that is a small area for improvement and probably more to do with my poor vision. It seems like somebody has figured out how to attach an SDD drive to the iPad so memory should not be a problem but I understand that the OS needs to partition the SDD - no biggie. That's probably my one complaint with Apple. Its crap to have the iPad stolen but often worse to lose data. It would be great if they let it accept a USB flash drive. (Actually, they should have a remote like a car where you need that and a pass code).

 

The flash drive would be good for back-ups when you are not near to a PC/Mac.

 

Thanks!

[cteno4]

sorry ive been working out in california all week.

 

aaron i think you just got a bad machine there at the store. machines like that on the front lines with folks doing all sorts of things to them usually end up with problems, i know i ran a school multimedia lab... the current imacs should have no problem with the kind of things you want to do to them. your only bottle neck should be the usb.

 

experience has taught me that i make money on the macs, as well as live a simpler and better life. ive run my own business on them for 23 years now and always just worked. macs last and last and never die in my use (they always went on to second and third lives with friends). pcs on the other hand usually blew within a couple of years (except for one old 486 that i hand built, but that went out of date way faster than it died...).

 

i just laugh at the folks that want to scoff at apple and its products. yes its a closed market and you pay a premium for the hardware, but you way way way make up for that in the long run in your ROI. those that choose not to think about their ROI, well thats their loss.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Martijn Meerts]

i just laugh at the folks that want to scoff at apple and its products. yes its a closed market and you pay a premium for the hardware, but you way way way make up for that in the long run in your ROI. those that choose not to think about their ROI, well thats their loss.

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

Actually, it depends on which Mac.. The Macbook Pro's are quite expensive, and you can get comparable machines from HP/Toshiba/Fujitsu/Dell/etc. for half the price. Their build quality won't be as good, and they might not last as long, but they'll be much cheaper.

 

The Mac Pro on the other hand.. I've tried several times putting a custom machine together on the Dell homepage with similar specs to a Mac Pro. The Dell ends up being slightly more expensive in most cases.

 

iMacs are quite expensive as well, but people forget there's a high quality screen in them that by itself is probably 2/3rd of the total price of the iMac :)

 

ROI is definitely better on the Macs though, they just generally seem to last longer without becoming unusable. I'm pretty sure hardcore gamers would get a crappy ROI from a Mac though, due to the almost non-existant upgrade path. (Can't easily plug in a new CPU, or even a GPU in case of the iMac. GPU's for the Mac Pro are twice the price of the same GPU for PC, etc.)

[keitaro]

my comments come from years of use of several different model macs at work.

 

always crashing on me when most important.

 

been on this pc typing from for 5 years now almost never have a crash.

 

Still runs as good as i got it as i know how to maintain it. something thats not easy to do on a mac.

 

edit ** fixed spelling wrote sever instead of several

[Martijn Meerts]

my comments come from years of use of sever different model macs at work.

 

always crashing on me when most important.

 

been on this pc typing from for 5 years now almost never have a crash.

 

Still runs as good as i got it as i know how to maintain it. something thats not easy to do on a mac.

 

 

 

Interesting. Most of the time you hear it the other way around :)

 

What got me switched to Mac, is when I started working for a company in Norway that only had Mac workstations. When I first started I got an old PowerMac G5, which was supposed to be replaced with a Mac Pro soon after. However, the machine worked so well, it took 3 years before I got it replaced.

 

What amazed me, is that it had an uptime of some 430 days, before I rebooted for an OS update. 430 days uptime for a workstation is something I never thought I'd get, and the workstation was used for photoshop, illustrator, flash, flex builder, ios development, 3d modeling etc.

 

 

It's really about personal experiences though, just like some people don't want to risk getting a new Tomix train because they've had too much trouble installing a decoder in one and getting it to run like it should. Also, same reason I refuse to buy any electronic equipment by Phillips, supposed to be good, but I've had nothing but trouble with them ;)