The 14- and 18-core iMac Pro won’t be available until later in 2018, but the 8- and 10-core variants will be available for order on December 14th. The 14-core iMac Pro wasn’t known about until today, but it makes sense considering that Intel’s 14-Core W-class Xeon processor is already a part of its existing lineup.
What the iMac lacks such as Nvidia graphics options, upgradability, expansion and user upgradeable hardware plus a wider gamut stand alone monitor, we can only hope, will be the hallmarks of the unreleased Mac Pro.
But if I had to have clients in a room editing, I would move heaven and earth to have this machine in the room. For cool, effortless editing of modern 4K material, - faithfully and quickly, this is a near perfect machine.
Perhaps the most important thing about the iMac Pro, is what was promised. Not only do the developer and creative communities hunger for a fast Pro iMac, but it is even more keen to see Apple hold to Phil Schiller's promises of re-committing to the developer community.
I tend to do most of my engineering and CFD-related software development working in a terminal with C and Fortran compilers, but for my iOS and Mac app development work I spend a lot of time in Xcode. A lot. A few weeks ago I was debugging an especially nasty MapKit tile rendering bug while racing to get my augmented reality app Theodolite ready for iPhone X, and I am pretty sure I clicked Xcode’s build/run button thousands of times over a couple days (at least it felt that way). When you get into an intense development or debug cycle that involves a lot of compiles, saving fractions of seconds here and there adds up and can give you extra hours in a day. This is one area where the 10-core iMac Pro shines when combined with Xcode’s ability to automatically take advantage of multiple cores to compile multiple source files simultaneously.
Most of my apps have around 20,000-30,000 lines of code spread out over 80-120 source files (mostly Obj-C and C with a teeny amount of Swift mixed in). There are so many variables that go into compile performance that it’s hard to come up with a benchmark that is universally relevant, so I’ll simply note that I saw reductions in compile time of between 30-60% while working on apps when I compared the iMac Pro to my 2016 MacBook Pro and 2013 iMac. If you’re developing for iOS you’ll still be subject to the bottleneck of installing and launching an app on the simulator or a device, but when developing for the Mac this makes a pretty noticeable improvement in repetitive code-compile-test cycles.
I found a very consistent set of results: a 2X to 3X boost in speed (relative to my current iMac and MacBook Pro 15”) a noticeable leap from most generational jumps that are generally ten times smaller.
Whether you’re editing 8K RED video, H.264 4K Drone footage, 6K 3D VR content or 50 Megapixel RAW stills – you can expect a 200-300% increase in performance in almost every industry leading software with the iMac Pro.
"We’re a resource for people in-between therapy sessions that’s low-cost and on-the-go. We need as many tools as we can to work on our well-being, especially preventive. How can we help people more preventively to focus on their mental health and get an on-the-go solution that works for their world? That’s how we see it."
Almost a year ago, David Smith released Workouts++, an alternative to watchOS’ built-in Workout app that adds an iOS component to leverage the data collected during workouts. Today, Smith released version 2.0 of Workouts++ with a host of new features enabled by advances in the Apple Watch and Apple’s health and fitness APIs, including podcast playback, location tracking and mapping, support for new workout types, Siri integration, and more. On top of that, Workouts++ is now free with no In-App Purchases, advertising, or subscription.
Apple has hired two legal execs — Philip Matthys from Hulu and Jennifer Wang Grazier from Legendary Entertainment — for key business affairs roles on its expanding original entertainment team, Variety has learned.
That sale price has many seeing ominous signs for the stable of unicorns stuck with ungainly valuations above $1 billion. In a statement via email, Mark Tluszcz, CEO at Mangrove Capital Partners and chair of Wix.com, warned that the low sale price of Shazam should serve as a warning that a big correction is coming following a period of venture capital excess.
Finisar is the latest recipient of an award from Apple’s $1 billion Advanced Manufacturing Fund to support innovation and job creation by American manufacturers. The $390 million will allow Finisar to increase the production of vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers (VCSELs), which power some of Apple’s most popular new features. Face ID, Portrait mode selfies and Animoji all use VCSEL technology.
An overhaul to the U.S. corporate tax means much more to Apple than just a different tax rate going forward. A territorial-based tax system will allow Apple to manage future cash generation much more efficiently. The days of Apple being stuck with too much cash in international subsidiaries are numbered. In addition, concerns surrounding Apple issuing too much debt will subside as the company will no longer need to rely on debt issuance to fund share buyback and quarterly cash dividend. These changes amount to a sustainable strategy for Apple to use when managing its massive balance sheet. There is finally light at the end of Apple's cash dilemma tunnel.
Apple has updated its updated its existing AirPort devices with firmware updates that patches vulnerabilities to KRACK attacks that allow a malicious hacker to bypass WPA2 encryption on Wi-Fi networks and make a user's data easy to view.
Mail to Things consists of an email address to forward messages to, which will become tasks in Things' inbox. Because the email address is unique to your account, you need to enable it from the app's Things Cloud settings pane, which will generate a personalized email address you can copy and save to your address book.
The few things that prevented Djay Pro from being true crossover professional software have now been added with the new version. Djay Pro 2 comes with, among other changes, a revamped user interface and an advanced library management system and core updates that make the app more nimble to use for those with large libraries of music.
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Watching Automix at work is wild. It will select the next song from your library that will best match with what’s currently playing, slowly fade over once it’s time to mix out, and even employ on-the-fly EQing and filters during the transition. It’s not perfect; there were several times I tried to “trick” the software by throwing it odd tempo changes or songs with little to no intro and the resulting mix was clunky. But in other instances it surprised me.
Overall, djay Pro 2 remains a feature-packed DJ app for the Mac, and Algoriddim continues to raise the bar by both adding new capabilities and making existing ones easier to use. There's still a bit of learning curve, but once you start to figure things out it becomes pretty intuitive. The feature set also scales with your experience, letting beginning DJs get familiar with the basics before moving on to more sophisticated skills.
These are the realities of being in Apple’s ecosystem: we don’t get a lot of advance notice, nor do we get a test device to ensure our things work well. If you want to get ahead in a crowded market (like, ahem, camera apps) you have to take a risk: try to improvise and use some ingenuity to figure out if you can play to the strengths of a new device.
We were incredibly relieved to find that it worked well, and our attempts to embrace the limitations and quirks of the hardware were rewarded with great press coverage.
It is not hard, to me, to imagine the new iMac Pro being conceived originally to replace the circular Mac Pro. After all, by going to all-in-one design for all products, Apple can eventually have the authentication sensors (be it Face ID or Touch ID), the secure enclave, and the CPU housed in a single unit that can be made as tamper-proof as possible.
Furthermore, a desktop computer that sits on a desk will make it easier to do Face ID (or Touch ID) than a desktop computer (like the previous Mac Pro) that sits underneath a desk. (Feet ID, anyone?) That may be the motivation for Apple to make the current Mac Pro to be that much smaller in foot-print.
But then again, why is Apple now making a new Mac Pro? Will the new Mac Pro be optimized differently, so much so that customers do not mind giving up on Face ID and Touch ID? (I don't think Apple will ever do a Touch ID that is on an external keyboard.)
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Thanks for reading.