Apple Is Changing My Heart
I had earlier posted how much Apple had been a disappointment to me and a disgrace to Steve Jobs. This was before the WWDC 2017 which took place from June 5th to 9th at the McEnery Convention Center in San Jose, California. Being a developer, I was at the time very angry for being neglected by the Apple team.
For a very long time Apple has not made any significant updates for developers;not any more. During the event there were a number of announcements about the new iOS and the new Alexa-like smart speaker: HomePod. But those are almost insignificant. What really had my heart laughing with joy was the announcement of the iMac Pro.
The iMac Pro
The iMac Pro is a dream come true for myself and many other developers around the world. Apple finally decided to cater to our needs and made us a “Killer” iMac. This mean machine will come in space grey only and will have up to 18 cores of the Xeon Processor(configuration of 8, 10, or 18 cores) with Turbo Boost Speeds of up to 4.5 GHz. Not forgetting that users will be able to choose 32, 64 or 128 MB of memory.
For the graphics, the guys at Apple had a chip in mind. Unfortunately, this particular chip had not been made yet. So the guys at Radeon had to make one for them. Introducing the new Radeon Pro Vega 53 graphics processor(Mac Edition). This graphics card is over three times faster than any previous iMac and can fetch data at over 400 GB/s. With 11 teraflops single precision and 22 teraflops half precision, this card will allow you to create simulations that render in 4K at lightning speed. The VR guys have not been left behind. If you have been dreaming of getting into VR but couldn’t find a suitable machine, look no further.
With all-flash storage of 1, 2, or 4 TB up to 3 GB/s, you will never have to worry about running out of storage during rendering of you 4K animation. They also went against Steve Jobs` wishes and added more ports. It will come with a total of 12 ports(including the power port); 4 high-speed thunder bolt 3 ports also known as USB-C type will allow you to connect two 5K displays to a maximum of 44 million pixels. There will be a 10 GB Ethernet with support for N base-T industry-standard 1 GB, 2.5 GB and 5 GB link speeds. 4 USB 3 ports will allow you to connect your favorite USB devices, a 3.5 mm headphone jack for you know what and a SDXC card slot for your SD cards(An essential for photographers and videographers).
Lets talk about the display. Since this was supposed to be a developer friendly iMac, Apple decided to make the screen 27 inches with 14.7 million pixels. This display will have support for over a billion colors bringing all your creations to life at. With 500 nits of brightness, the screen is set to have 43% more brightness than the previous iMac.
And with all this power, won’t the iMac Pro go up in flames? Not if the guys at Apple can help it. They decided to come up with a completely new and advanced heat management system. This required them to completely redesign the iMac Pro’s thermal architecture and resulted in a massive heat sink and extra venting. You should therefore stay chill because the new iMac Pro will handle 500 watts-which is 67% more than the previous iMac- and stay chill as well.
Finally, the iMac Pro will have a 1080p high definition FaceTime camera and enhanced stereo speakers that will deliver crisp clear sound.
Final Verdict
I am definitely going to get myself one of these once they start shipping in December. The only thing I am wary about is the price tag. At a basic configuration price of $4,999, I doubt whether many will be able to afford. But for those who have deep pockets, I am sure they’ll have no problem forking out the more than $17K required to purchase the maxed out version.
Originally published at newtonthemaker.wordpress.com on July 9, 2017.
