The Apple situation

I have blogged about it before, but after last night I do feel the need to update my feelings, not that it will change anything.
A few years ago I always loved to be in sync with the keynote, there was always something exciting and the terms awesome were always pretty much spot on, although some other people believed Apple was being arogant I in all honesty was of the opinion that if you’re cutting edge you can be…. unless you make it true (which Apple did).
For years for me Apple just created the best gear on the planet, and also gear which you thought you would never need and when you worked with it you can’t be without, like the iPad, I really didn’t want this bloated iPhone but when I tried one I was sold (for travellers it’s awesome, and still is) it’s long battery time and video options in a plane or boat or whatever was just awesome.

The last few months the love is slowing dying and it hurts, Apple is an unique company and in my opinion a game changer, so many things they made better in my (and a lot of others people lifes), I never thought I would use an Apple watch but now that I have one I constantly use it for sports, checking messages, sometimes even picking up the phone, navigation it’s pretty handy in all honesty…. but why this blogpost…

Well last year I wanted something bigger and better than my MacPro.
Rendering H264 content was actually faster on my MacBook Pro than on my MacPro and with the new Wacom Mobile Studio out I really wanted to add USB-C so I could use the Wacom as a Cintiq but no such luck. I was still content to wait but not till 2018 so I took the jump and build myself a KILLER PC, I started with a budget of 3000.00 EURO and decided that everything that over 3000 I would start cutting down… much to my surprise I could build my dream machine for little under and still had some change for a led strip (you have to love those). I expected the Windows route to be troublesome (although I had good experiences with the Wacom mobile studio pro my main machine….. well….) but the opposite was true. It was actually almost flawless and the machine has been running without any problems ever since. Small things are different of course both positve and negative but on a large avarage I actually at the moment prefer wintel slightly over mac, not for the OS but for the ease of use of what I personally do with it, for example my plugin for the x-rite colorchecker works now under Lightroom with higher resolution images which never worked on the mac (or buggy), I can connect my iPhone and just see the filmrol (very handy) but I also miss OS wide colormanagement…. long story short it’s not a big deal switching and there’s nothing that you can’t get used to and a lot you will learn to LOVE and visa versa. As mentioned before see it as moving, most of your furniture can travel with you but somethings have to go for shiny new things and somethings you have to say goodbye to.

My MacBook was my life, I use it EVERY single day, surfing, editing, the vlog, the blog, retouching you name it and I do it with the MacBook, in fact in hours I spend at least double the time on the MacBook than on my Studio machine, when the new MacBook was released I realized it was also time to switch and in the end I went for the Dell XPS15, my opinion after a month or so… this is how the MacBook should have been, this is one GORGOUS and insanely fast laptop, price….. half of the Apple version….. and talk about small, listen Apple you can go MUCH smaller with the same battery, just loose the screensides, it’s amazing.

So why the update.
Yesterday the keynote… I didn’t watch it live for the simple reason I just couldn’t put myself to it, and I’m glad I didn’t I did follow the live stream and was perplexed by the non vision Apple is showcasing.

Let’s just take a look at :
The Apple watch updates
I love that they move more towards sports and health, I think this is what the Apple watch should be all about, however not with the excersize app from Apple, but with the connection to machines in gyms… awesome great work Apple that’s what I mean that’s awesome. Now make the promised accesories for glucose etc. and other devices, make the heartbeat meter more accurate (maybe with an option for a heartbelt) with for example rowing and power and the Apple watch could be the gold standard for sports.
So that’s good.
Where they TOTALLY loose me is the time they spend on the watch faces….
With the price of the Apple watch, how many children are wearing one……
And maybe it’s me but I don’t see myself wearing a watch that shows Toy Story, and trust me I’m a big child in my heart.

Than the smart speaker
Looks great, and the idea is awesome of course, a speaker in every room of your house that makes your house smarter.
But first off… Apple is VERY VERY late in the game.
Second off… Apple is VERY VERY expensive, for a normal house you’re talking about at least 3 units and that’s a small fortune realizing that it can also be done differently. Not so long ago Apple had a genius device called the Airport… not to expensive and my house is filled with them, strong wifi everywhere with just 3 units (we have a “difficult” house for wifi”) just add a powered speaker or BT speaker in every room and you’re done. For Siri just use your phone I use “hey siri” all the time and it works flawless if I’m listening to music and my phone rings I just answer it. I’m all for smart houses don’t get me wrong, but it should be something that’s unique and I would much rather have it all intergrated in a device I always carry with me than in a speaker…. that’s in one location and how about the sensitivity if I have the music playing rather loud and am in the other side of the room and want the music to go in mute because someone is coming in…. I don’t know… for 150.00 I’m willing to try it but for well over 300.00 no thank you, if you want it to work you need one in every room and …. well I’m still waiting for that price in the lottery (oh wait I don’t have tickets).

Than the iMacPro
It’s cool that it’s black (I guess, I love black)
But Xeon’s…. really.
Not every pro needs Xeon’s, in fact when you’re into video and photography or painting an i9 or i7 would be the better choice.
Another thing is expandiblity.
I’m using a BenQ 32″ 4K monitor for color correction, a wacom cintiq for retouching and a 27″ BenQ for tools, mail, social media and monitor for video editing. This would be a nightmare with the iMac…. with the recent quality of iMac screens I could use it for the monitor monitor but that’s about it, and hooking up two more monitors to an iMac….. well you know where I’m going. It seems Apple is putting pro in front of a lot of things where first it was Magic…. why not just stick with the “i” which is genius by the way.

New iPads
Awesome, again a new iPad.
But…. why?
It’s not like my current iPad is so slow I need a new one, in fact my iPads are now a days only used for surfing and some light gaming (candy crush is still a favorite on long flights) Oh and I watch movies on it. So now we have new ones but for prices where you can for example also get a Lenovo Yoga book that runs a full OS and also has support for everything you ever wanted into a device for a traveler, but it also has a keyboard and runs full office and Photoshop, oh and you can shoot tethered to it and….. and….. well you get the idea.

When the iPad pro was released I was a HUGE advocat for the device, I loved the Apple pencil and I tried to incorperate it into my workflow but it failed 🙁 (or maybe I failed I don’t know), it was just to cumbersome to get video off it, the surprising part was actually that the video workflow was the best compared to the dissaster for photography. I tried every single retouching program and although I absolutely loved them for my iPhone shots for my serious work they were (I don’t want to say a joke) “not up for it”.

So now we have affinity, the Photoshop alternative.
Great that it’s on the desktop, a bit of competition is good for Adobe, but in my opinion with the prices of Creative cloud and what you get with it I think Adobe is still the choice for the creators, maybe they will miss a part of the consumers but one day they will probably go back to adobe for the simple reason that if you have a question about Photoshop or Lightroom there is always an answer on YouTube or online. I really hope Affinity will be succesfull but untill I can run all my plugins and it works faster and easier than Photoshop I’m sticking with the industry standard. Ok so Affinity is now on the iPad… awesome…..

But really… is it that awesome.
Ok it supports PSD, TIFF etc. But do you really want to retouch your images on a screen that’s not calibrated? How do you tint your images, how do you make sure there is enough shadow detail, and that’s just the start. How do you get all your images on there, and how do you get them off in the field, at home it’s easy, but in the field….. I still have to look into it but I feel Affinity is awesome on the iPad but the iPad is just not the device for it (how weird that may sound), so if the pro’s don’t use it….. aren’t the consumers just happy with the amazing snapseed…. that’s free btw.

The MacPro
Well…. there we go.
The MacPro is coming…. well it would be rather time…..oh wait what do you say…. it will be 2018 or 2019….
Oh well I guess we will see by than. I guess at that time we will all be at Thunderbolt 4.
It will be modulair… awesome… but wait a minute my laptop is already modulair… I can use my TB3 connector for an external GPU.
Apple you’re not making something that’s never been done before so get the “bloody” thing out there.
The reason it’s taking so long is beyond me, Intel just released their new (rushed because of AMD) platform if you base it on that I can already tell you that in 2019 it’s absolute.

Ok in conclusion
I hate long blogposts.
But if you’re still reading, thanks man that’s really awesome.
I LOVE Apple, everytime I see an Apple product is just shows design and quality and it’s gorgous.. however more and more when I see the price and limitations I’m getting a feeling it’s not my thing, I need workhorses and I need devices that can take a beating if by accident it happens (I’m incredibly careful with my gear but we do travel). I’m now in Windows world… and it’s scary instead of choosing my CPU and harddrive and screensize I now have a multitude of choices and you can get really stressed by it, in fact I was… I bought the Dell XPS15 because everyone told me it’s the best laptop in the world at the moment for Mac users, and I think I agree (I love it)…. My studio PC was easy… I know how to build a PC and knowing I can switch components EVERY moment I want or need it is just great and knowing that in a case of emergency a repair will be done in minutes instead of making an appointment and waiting and hoping they fix it…. well it’s great for a business. Just make sure you have a good mirror drive (because I still don’t trust windows that much, but it’s slowly coming).

For me it’s simple.
At the moment I’m using my iPhone and loving it, no Android for me or Windows Phone, no sire.
But I also LOVE the google pixel and Samsung S8….. mmmmm
It’s simple…..
If the new iPhone is a great device and it’s priced below 950.00 euro for a 128GB version I’m staying with Apple and the Apple watch. The iPad will never be upgraded anymore, that will be a windows tablet if needed, but the combination for sports between the Apple watch and iPhone is too handy to give up….

In total conclusion
A year ago I told everyone “once you go mac you never go back”
Now I look back at a few years of development by Apple and I believe the term…. history repeats itself.
Who’s gonna save Apple this time?

The competition
The competition isn’t sitting still, in fact they are like sharks around a wounded animal.
Microsoft is calling it’s updates “Creators updates” and is now stepping up with new designs, handoff between iOs devices, iTunes in the store, better intergration of iOs into the windows system and you should actually google what they are planning for their windows phone system…. now that’s going to be awesome. A total intergration between the Os on the deskop and mobile. Just hope they pull it off and if they do…. bye bye Apple (but as always they have to make it work). Oh and I forget the Surface books, the Surface Studio and the Surface pro……

Also look at Samsung, the S8+ is introduced by creators, is it really a creators Phone… no of course not it’s just as good a creators phone as any others, but the competition is REALLY aiming for that Apple group of creators.

Also look at YouTube, the amount of Dell XPS15 machines is going up in the vlogging community, where it was very dominant Apple.
It’s a great time to be a creator…. and as always… stand out or be gone.