That’s a statement, as is the black surround. Function keys are not only back, they’re full-height. There can be no sensible explanation for why it was removed now that we’ve seen how it can so perfectly coexist with USB-C charging.Īnd then there’s the keyboard. The HDMI port speaks for itself, but it’s the return of MagSafe that feels like the most profound reversal of course. But in 2021, SD card speeds have earned the smaller storage sticks a place in even my Sony a7RIV, where every shutter click results in a roughly 62MB file. Back then, bigger DSLRs mostly shot to bigger and faster CF cards. SD cards were useful in 2016 when they were obliterated from Apple’s laptops, but not exclusively so. Its removal was a bet on a wireless future - a bet that no working photographer would take today (I once watched a Sony employee struggle for a good portion of an hour to link a Sony camera to a Sony phone). Apple is not known for graciously admitting a mistake, yet here we have laptops that so resoundingly repudiate their design assertions of the last half-decade that it’s hard for us pros to not feel at least seen, if not downright vindicated. That uncharacteristic willingness to admit that a grand experiment did not pay out is perhaps the single most dominating vibe of these computers. I hope that Apple won’t stop experimenting with ideas like this, and listening to their users about the results. I applaud Apple for trying the Touch Bar, and feel bittersweet to see it gone. I never managed to build habits around it, as I am only a part-time laptop user. The Touch Bar not only failed to be better than the thing it stole real-estate from, it also didn’t work reliably, and seemingly struggled to hold even Apple’s attention. It came at the expense of function keys - and as boring as function keys are, they are damn useful. What I came to realize though was that however promising the Touch Bar was, it was never an additional input method. I notoriously love alternative input devices, whether it be color control surfaces or keypads, trackballs or touchscreens. We jumped on supporting it right away in Slugline. I was open to the Touch Bar when it was first introduced. What I did not expect is that a laptop might beat it to the punch in replacing my trusty desktop powerhouse. After the impressive launch of Apple’s home-grown M1 processor, I’ve been thrilled to imagine what the next pro iMac might look like. I color graded a 20-minute short in 4k on this machine, and it did eventually get a bit bogged down.Īt the four-year mark, the iMac Pro is about ready for a replacement. While I’ve had to work hard to find any apps that will push its CPU to the limit, the same has not been true for GPU. I never hear its fans over the other noises in my studio. The iMac Pro is incredibly stable - I might restart it once a month or so. I frequently have a dozen apps open at a time, and it runs 24/7 executing automations and remote and local renders. Four years later, with ten CPU cores and 128 GB of DDR RAM, it’s still my solid workhorse. When Apple released the iMac Pro, I immediately bought two iMacs-worth of it. This culminated with a machine that seemed to indicate Apple agreed that iMacs are suited for professional work. With each new machine, everything got better - CPU, GPU, storage, memory, and display. This frequent-iMac-upgrade plane worked great for me for about a decade. My habit at the time was to budget a replacement maxed-out iMac every three or so years rather than spend more on an ostensibly upgradable Mac Pro. When Apple announced the Trash Can, I recommended folks consider spending the same money on two iMacs. I just know myself well enough to know I’ll be too lazy to pull apart my machine and swap out parts.
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