Mac Pro Reviews Find Impressive Hardware, But Few Software Titles Take Advantage

After a weekend of testing, Engadget and The Verge have posted longer pieces on their Mac Pro review units, with mixed results.

As The Verge repeatedly notes, the new Mac Pro really only shines when used with software specifically optimized for its dual-GPU setup. At the moment, Final Cut Pro X is the best demonstration of the Mac Pro’s prowess — when using other software, the Mac Pro is only modestly faster than a new-vintage iMac, though, as Engadget points out, that should change soon.

Without belaboring the point, this brings me to one of my few concerns about the Mac Pro, which is that right now, at least, most programs won’t fully harness its graphics capabilities. One of the reasons I spent so much time in Final Cut Pro is that it’s one of the few programs designed specifically to run well on a new Mac Pro. It reminds me a bit of how Retina display MacBook Pros were initially short on compatible software. If that analogy holds true, we should see more apps retooled to play nice with the Mac Pro’s dual-GPU setup. Just be prepared for some slim pickings if you buy one this week.

When the Mac Pro is running optimized software, however, performance is impressive. Engadget found similar results to those from Friday, reporting that 4K clips could render and display more than a dozen filters in real-time, and that the machine can play back as many as 16 4K streams simultaneously. File transfers are incredibly fast, and most apps launch immediately.

Perhaps the most immediately noticeable change is to the Mac Pro’s design. The Verge noted that the location of the Pro’s ports — on the back of the device — can make connecting and disconnecting plugs a pain, while also grumbling about the lack of an SD card slot. Engadget wasn’t perturbed by the lack of a card slot, noting that the professionals that will likely purchase the device use a wide variety of storage cards so including a slot for just one of those formats would be rather arbitrary.

Engadget notes that the Mac Pro can get a bit warm — unsurprising given the amount of horsepower under the hood — but it doesn’t get particularly hot.

For lack of a better word, you’d have to provoke the machine to really be bothered by the heat: The warmest area is at the top of the chassis, and even then, you’d have to be sticking your hand near the vents to feel it. Otherwise, the chassis does get a tad warm — and can take a while to cool down — but it’s much cooler than the air blowing out of the top. Avoid sticking your fist into the opening at the top and you’ll be fine. As for noise, I tried hard to get the fans spinning, but they stayed quiet. Actually, if you put your ear up to the opening at the top, you will hear a faint purring, but again, you’d have to be the sort of wise guy willing to put your ear next to the hottest part of the machine (not recommended).

While Engadget is largely impressed with the new device, The Verge uses Adobe Premiere for its video editing and found very slight performance improvements because Adobe has not yet updated its software to take advantage of the Mac Pro’s dual-GPUs. In fact, Premiere puts most of its processing on the Mac Pro’s CPUs, the tower’s weakest performance datapoint.

When Adobe — and other performance-focused applications — are inevitably upgraded to take advantage of the Pro, it’s likely the performance improvements will shine like they do with Final Cut Pro X. Until then, however, the Mac Pro is mostly an incredibly well-designed, and fast, Mac. With new Mac Pro orders currently delayed until at least February, perhaps it will give developers time to upgrade their software.

Catch: How Apple Could Integrate Note-Taking Capabilities into Reminders, Siri, Maps, and More

Before shutting its doors in August of 2013 following an acquisition by Apple that was revealed this morning, Catch operated a web-based note taking service and iOS and Android apps known as Catch Notes. Ahead of the company’s acquisition, Catch Notes was well-known as a high-quality productivity app and had been featured by Apple as a new and noteworthy app when it was first released in 2010 and as part of the Apple’s “Why You’ll Love an iPhone” advertising campaign.

Designed for note taking, Catch Notes allowed users to capture and share ideas, writing notes in text, saving images, and recording voice notes. It functioned similarly to Evernote, organizing notes into different categories that could be easily shared with others. Deep organization was one of the key features of Catch Notes, which organized notes into “Spaces” or folders that included tags for labeling. Spaces could be manipulated with simple touch gestures, giving Catch Notes an easy-to-use interface.

In addition to bundling a variety of note formats into a single note-taking app, Catch Notes also included task-oriented functionality like checklists and reminders, along with a lot of collaborative features. With Catch Notes, for instance, users could create a task list or note that was shared and synced between multiple people.

Shortly before Catch shut down its services, the company also launched Catch Team, designed to make team collaboration both easier and more secure through the implementation of “team leader” functionality allowing an admin to manage individual users.

It is impossible to predict how Catch and its Evernote-style note-taking capabilities might be incorporated into Apple’s OS X and iOS operating systems, but there are multiple possible use cases for the technology, across Notes, Reminders, Siri, and Maps.

Notes and Reminders

Catch’s base functionality, which included note taking that incorporated both images and audio clips, is an easy to imagine expansion for Apple’s own Notes and Reminders apps. Currently, Notes and Reminders are limited to text functionality, though voice dictation can be used to transcribe text. With design elements taken from Catch Notes, notes, reminders, and checklists could be created from and include both audio clips and photos or other images directly within a note or reminder.

Catch Notes used a tag-based system for organizing notes, much like Finder in OS X. While Reminders incorporates colored tags as well, a more unified tagging system across Reminders and Notes apps for both iOS and OS X could make Apple’s productivity apps far more functional by facilitating quicker searches for relevant content.

The collaborative features within Catch Notes could also be useful within the Reminders and Notes apps, allowing users to easily share content over iCloud. With collaboration, deeper functionality, and better organization for the Notes app, Apple’s built-in productivity software could edge closer to competing with more robust solutions like Evernote, which was formerly one of Catch’s competitors.

Catch also had an innovative click-wheel style menu system that was simple to use for the creation of new content, along with visual notifications, and it is possible that some of these design elements could make it into Apple’s apps in the future.

Siri and iCloud

An expanded Evernote-like note and reminder functionality bundled into Apple’s own Notes and Reminders apps could also be extended to Siri, allowing the service to potentially capture voice-based notes to be remembered later.

Catch’s robust syncing capabilities, which allowed content to be synced to multiple iOS devices and multiple user accounts, is also technology that Apple could look into incorporating into future versions of iOS and iCloud.

Maps

Along with its Catch Note app, Catch also operated an Android App called Compass, which was a location-based app that allowed users to make location-based notes about individual places, similar to how Foursquare allows users to leave tips on each location within the app.

New to Compass? Compass is our location-based app that allows you to always know where North is, save your favorite locations, navigate back to them (with Google Maps), and take notes about a location.

It is possible that Apple could use this location-based note-taking technology in order to expand its mapping capabilities, as it has worked hard in recent months to beef up its Maps app through the acquisition of several Mapping apps including Embark, Locationary, and HopStop. Aggregating location-based notes could be a way for Apple to introduce location discovery and additional points of interest to Maps.

Catch was shut down in August of 2013 and according to recent reports, was acquired by Apple during the same month. It remains unknown when or how Apple will incorporate the purchase into its own products, but at this time, several former Catch employees are now working at Apple on iOS-related software.

Apple Posts iOS 7 ‘Tech Talk’ Videos and Slides to Developer Site [iOS Blog]

Apple has posted the slides and videos from its iOS 7 Tech Talks tour to its Developer web site.

The talks took place this fall at a variety of locations around the world and were geared to both general app developers and those focused specifically on games.

Get in-depth guidance about developing for iOS 7, learn practical coding tips and tricks, and obtain valuable one-on-one programming and design assistance in our lab. Choose which day is best for you — app developer day or game developer day.

The sixteen talks cover a variety of topics including App Store Distribution and Marketing, Integrating iOS 7 Technologies, User Interface Design, Security and Privacy, and more. They are open to all registered developers, even those that don’t pay a yearly subscription fee.