Is Apple killing DTP on the Mac?

[ElDiabloConCaca]

Originally Posted by Ferdinand

For example, you have an iBook with a mini VGA to VGA adapter, and you go along, connecting your iBook to beamers and whatever with your adapter. Everything fine. Then all of a sudden, you need to connect your iBook to a TV, to watch iTunes TV Shows. So you buy a mini VGA to video adapter. A year later, you buy your first MacBook, since your iBook is already quite slow. Now not only do you need to buy a mini DVI to VGA adapter, but also a mini DVI to video adapter. We're now at 3 adapters. Now, this year, you receive a MacBook Pro with a mini DisplayPort for work. Again, you need to buy a mini DisplayPort to VGA adapter and another mini DisplayPort to video adapter. But, lets not forget your Apple Cinema Display at work. So now you also need a DVI to ADC adapter. Because your TV is also already quite old, you decide to find a new one, but your new TV has a DVI connector, so you go buy a mini DisplayPort to DVI adapter...

You see where I'm going with this?

Bear with me, because this is half-serious and half-facetious...

Yes, I see where you're going. Someone who has the money to purchase two brand-new laptops in the course of two years and has a job that gives him a high-end laptop is complaining about having to spend another $160 in video adapters so that he can use three laptops (spanning the technological range of no less than 5 years) with all possible combinations of monitors, TVs and other display devices (technologically spanning an equal-to-or-greater-than number of years).

Did I get that about right?

[fryke]

I gotta double down as well. Whether you're buying private or buying as a business: We're talking about a 30$ adapter (or two) to add to a, say, 2000$ computer. It's 1.5%-3% of the computer's price, a little more for the cheaper computers. It's neither a technological nor a financial desaster.

But more importantly: How often exactly *DOES* Apple change video adapters for a given computer line? Let's see...

The PowerBook G4 went to DVI in 2002. The MacBook Pro went from DVI to Mini DisplayPort in 2008. That's one change in six years.

The iBook went from Mini-VGA to MacBook with Mini-DVI in 2006 (after 5 years of Mini-VGA!). It then went Mini DisplayPort in 2008 (whereas the white MacBook stayed with Mini-DVI, which I consider "no harm done", although I'd have preferred Apple to go Mini DisplayPort there as well), which is a _tad_ fast, but that's in the consumer space and *NOT* the market we're talking here (professional DTP).

On the PowerMac to Mac Pro line, we're talking DVI (full DVI) since 1999. The current Mac Pro line *STILL* has full DVI, fully supported, and seriously I *dare* you to find a professional display that's not compatible with that. (And don't count the 24" Apple display here, that's sadly a consumer item with its glossy screen and I could rant a whole lot about that as well.) The video connector for the professional desktop Macintosh computer did *not* change in 10 years, now they've just added Mini DisplayPort, which very *clearly* is the new standard that Apple's decided on, and I don't see them move away from that in the coming five years. Wanna bet on it?

I'm just saying: If you're a professional DTP shop and you're seriously in a deep problem about those adapters, buy two of each and * * * *. (Wow, I seriously have to calm down, but I find this part of the discussion to be really over the top.)

[ElDiabloConCaca]

On the PowerMac to Mac Pro line, we're talking DVI (full DVI) since 1999...

Slight correction -- remember ADC? The PowerMac G4 line used DVI for the AGP model, but quickly switched to VGA/ADC cards from the Gigabit G4 line (July 2000) through the QuickSilver (January 2002), when VGA/DVI was brought back.

An ADC-to-DVI adapter was offered by Apple during this time, so, technically, it could be shoehorned in with the 1999-DVI-to-present timeline.

I think the take-away from this is that you cannot expect both forward- and backward-compatibility outside of a year or two, maybe three. If you intend on using a computer manufactured in 2005 with a 3rd-party display, you're going to have the best luck if the display also comes from around that time period. The same with software: people bitch and moan that Aldus Pagemaker 6.0 won't run on an MDD G4 with the latest-and-greatest Mac OS X flavor-of-the-week -- but again, you're mixing early-90s software with early-2000s hardware running late-2000s operating system... i.e., you're begging for incompatibilities.

Infinite forward- and backward-compatibility isn't effective and it stifles innovation. Apple's out to make a buck off of you -- make no mistake about that. They're not a charity angling to provide you with layers upon layers of compatibility that is geared toward making your computing life less complicated. Connectors of various types and compatibility levels will come and go, and shelling out a few thousand bucks every 4 years is almost required if you wish to keep up with the times.

[rubaiyat]

I don't think your example is extreme at all.

It stops me from connecting my Macs to our TVs as there are 2 existing TVs and many shelved and amongst the current Macs we have there are at least 5 different connectors.

Not being excessively stupid, I have noticed how Apple can't stop changing things for changes sake and leaving us to pick up the pieces and the bill for their changes of mind.

Getting back to the original point, DTP has become more difficult not less since Apple forced us all over to OSX and has continuously fiddled with that, never quite getting it to work and always adding more sides to the wheels they keep reinventing.