New Mac Pro

[SpontaneousOrder]

Anyone know about this stuff reckon it's with it for general dev purposes? Looks a bit like overkill, but then is my only Mac alternative another more powerful MacBook pro? Seems daft to have 2 laptops.

Are the iMacs any good for developer work? I know nothing about them - only got my mbp for its size and build quality, and discovered that it's brilliant.

[NickFitz]

An iMac is excellent for development work. I'd get one myself, but I'm happy doing everything on my MacBook Air 13".

If you've got a spare monitor, keyboard, and mouse or trackpad, then another alternative would be the Mac Mini.

[CheeseSlice]

only got my mbp for its size and build quality, and discovered that it's brilliant.

Build quality? Have you not seen El Reg try to take one apart? They're held together with glue and they have to use guitar plectrums and a heat gun to slowly prise them apart just to replace parts.

[stek]

Anyone know about this stuff reckon it's with it for general dev purposes? Looks a bit like overkill, but then is my only Mac alternative another more powerful MacBook pro? Seems daft to have 2 laptops.

Are the iMacs any good for developer work? I know nothing about them - only got my mbp for its size and build quality, and discovered that it's brilliant.

It's perfect for invoices and expense spreadsheets, but make sure you order 128gb ram and three 4k screens...

[NickFitz]

Build quality? Have you not seen El Reg try to take one apart? They're held together with glue and they have to use guitar plectrums and a heat gun to slowly prise them apart just to replace parts.

Good job they don't have to replace parts then

It's not some piece of junk from Dell that needs fixing all the time. You get what you pay for.

[craig1]

Depends what type of dev work you're doing. The Mac Pro is quite seriously outspecced for most dev work but looks fantastic for others. A graphic designer friend who got a trial run of two said that the faster clock 6 core with the dual 700 graphics cards was much faster for him than the 12 core with dual 500 cards. If you're willing to spend that sort of money then you fit into one of these categories:

1. You know exactly what combination of clock speed, cores, memory and graphics cards you'll need to do your job and you're happy to pay knowing that you're actually getting good value for money.
2. You're a poser who'll do nothing more complex than removing red-eye from family holiday photos. You'll still tell everyone how fantastic it is when in reality you'd probably get the same speeds for general desktop/office work from a decent iMac. Your Mac Pro will secretly hate you and will wait until you're one day away from remembering to back up the hard drive before wiping it clean and going up in a puff of smoke caused by the dust bunnies in the unused pro-grade graphics cards.

The Macbook Pro is more than good enough for most users. I had 4 VMs running simultaneously on mine back in 2011 just after I got it, 2x Win7 and 2x WinXP all running automated test scripts, while I got on with my normal work on the MacOS. It did sound like it was about to take off from a carrier deck though...

[CheeseSlice]

Good job they don't have to replace parts then

It's not some piece of junk from Dell that needs fixing all the time. You get what you pay for.

But seriously.... GLUE ???

[AtW]

FFS, get a PC!!!

[NickFitz]

But seriously.... GLUE ???

The only bit that's glued in is the battery. If the battery needs replacing, which requires disassembling every other part of the machine, it's more cost-effective for them to transfer your data to a working machine (which can be done straight away in-store) and ship the broken one back to be reconditioned, or probably recycled if it's an older model.

[NickFitz]

FFS, get a PC!!!

Marco Arment was checking out the equivalent to a Mac Pro in PC form yesterday. When he used HP's website to configure a roughly equivalent machine, their price was around $2000 more than Apple's. Similar result on Dell's site. And, of course, the PCs were more the size, shape, and weight of a wheely bin than a wastepaper basket