Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/759864
24 cgw n o v e m b e r . d e c e m b e r 2 0 1 6 its latest 15-inch MacBook Pro ma- chines equipped with Intel's 2.6 ghz Core i7, 16gb 2133 mhz memory, and AMD's low-profile Radeon Pro 450 with 2gb GDDR 5 fits the bill. All of the new Mac- Book Pros have a larger Force touchpad that accommodates more gestures and pressure. The base 15-inch model has 256 gb memory and meets the expectations of expandability with four Thunderbolt 3 ports, which means any of the ports can provide power or peripherals. The displays on these new machines are Apple's wide-gamut (25 percent more colors than an sRGB display) retina displays with a resolution of 2880x1800, 226 pixels per inch. It boasts a starting price of $2,399. Apple is also offering a version with 2.7 ghz, a Radeon Pro 455, and 512gb SSD for $2,799. Of course, there are plenty of op- tions including 2.9 ghz Core i7, Thunderbolt 3 monitors from LG in 4k and 5k, and up to a terabyte SSD drive. At its presentation, Ap- ple described a loaded 15-inch MacBook Pro with two LG monitors and two RAID drives as a very worthy base for a professional editing suite using Apple, Adobe, and Avid tools, and that's exactly what it is going to be used for. In some fields of creative work, one of the most important requirements of a professional computer is that it carries an Apple logo. The other important aspect of the new Apple machines is the much leaked about OLED touchpad at the top of the keyboard that replaces the function keys. The Touch Bar, as Apple calls it, does all the jobs the functions keys did, such as change lighting, raise/lower volume, and play/pause media buttons, but it can be customized for appli- cations. At the event, representatives from Adobe, Microso, and Algoriddm demon- strated Touch Bar optimizations and, of course, Apple's own Final Cut Pro. Apple promised widespread support for Touch Bar when the new machines come out later this year, and mentioned several other apps including Black Magic's DaVinci Resolve and Pixelmator image editing. It's also user-customizable. What's not obvious without seeing the Touch Bar demonstrated in conjunction with the Force Touch track- pad is the way it enables true two-handed workflows that put the controls more con- veniently at the users' fingertips, rather than on the screen. A LOOK AT THE MARKET Presently, there is a great deal of discussion around the post-PC era. Sales of PCs are down. In studies of the workstation market at Jon Peddie Research (JPR), the group has found workstation sales to be remarkably stable. In the latest JPR workstation report (www.jonpeddie.com/publications/work- station_report/), which covered Q2 2016, analyst Alex Herrera notes that workstation sales hit a new record, with shipments of branded workstations at 1.1 million – a 21.7 percent sequential gain. Even more impres- sive, sales increased 7 percent year over year, while the PC market is still seeing declines (though the decline seems to be slowing). Likewise, Nvidia and AMD have shipped 1.3 million professional graphics add-in boards (AIBs), a 20 percent gain sequen- tially and 12.3 percent year over year. (The reason more AIBs ship than workstations is because some are used for upgrading existing machines, and some users have two AIBs in their systems.) Moreover, the increasing sophistication of soware pipelines is demanding more compute power, not less. At the same time, workers do not want to be tied to their desk, and in many cases their work is enhanced by an ability to go work in the field, interact with customers and colleagues, or stay home and work in peace and quiet. Business Advantage, a London based research firm, has conducted a series of worldwide surveys asking CAD users about their awareness of trends and their actual usage of applications. In its surveys, the company found a decline in the use of desk- top workstations in favor of mobile comput- ers, mobile workstations, tablets, and virtual CAD workstations. JPR has found likewise in its own studies, and the workstation vendors also see these trends. Indeed, HP and Dell have fielded a couple of generations of thin workstations. The ven- dors are required to walk the line between maintaining performance and durability against weight and battery life. Workstation customers are not inclined to compromise. The high-end performance offered by workstations is always going to be required, and for really compute-intensive jobs, we are seeing power being distributed to enable professionals to call on processors when they need them. In addition, the ability to collaborate in real time with high-quality visualization and performance is a growing driver in the professional environment of today and will be even more so in the future. Thus, we don't see the overall demand for workstations declining, and in fact, we find the demand for high-end processing to be a growing trend. The workstation companies also have been building out their remote computing offerings. Dell has gone to the extreme APPLE ADDS A UNIQUE LOOK TO ITS OFFERINGS. NEW APPLE MACHINES HAVE A TOUCH BAR AT THE TOP OF THE KEYBOARD.