Is it time, again for Apple to define "Professional"?
Five years ago, I sat in one of Apple's oldest buildings on the original Apple Campus, listening as three Apple executives did the unthinkable: apologized and shared future plans .
The apology was not to me, but to all the professionals who relied on the Mac Pro for business, production, and rendering tasks. An arguably small set of users with outsized influence on the perception of Apple in the broader marketplace. Basically, the circular (often derisively called "trashcan" design of the then-current Mac Pro ) was too restrictive or, as Apple SVP of Software Engineering Craig Federighi told me and a small set of assembled tech journalists, "We’d found ourselves a bit boxed in by a circular shape.”
Apple listens to customer feedback, media reports, and online chatter about its products but usually never tells people like me anything about it. This time, though, Apple shared - a lot.
Is Apple Silicon the new divider?
The upshot of all this sharing was the uncharacteristic revelation of the next phase in the Mac Pro line. Essentially, Apple told us, they were starting from scratch. The "trash can" design would end up in, yes, the trash, and a completely new Mac Pro was on the way.
The rest is history. The redesigned Mac Pro , which Apple unveiled roughly a year behind schedule in 2019 , is a blend of the traditional (removable box chassis and significant upgradeability), and the fantastic with a bold aluminum design featuring dozens of carved-out spheres.
I'm not sure everyone loved it, but it was not divisive like the last Mac Pro and quite effectively brought professional users back into the fold.
Three years later, Apple is busy fracturing the Professional market with a divider it likes to call Apple Silicon.
Apple's custom SoC, which it introduced a year after the new Mac Pro, is quickly becoming the go-to processor for virtually every Apple product (even iPhones are being roped into the mix now that Apple insists on calling its A-series chips Apple silicon, as well).
With four distinct flavors - the M1, M1 Max, M1 Pro , and M1 Ultra - there's little these powerful chips can't do. They live in everything from the consumer-friendly iPad Air to the exciting, new Mac Studio .
For the moment the Mac Pro still runs Intel Xeon processors and powerful AMD Radeon GPUs. It is a monster performer and clearly for the "Pro-est" of the Pro.
But for how long?
Apple looks to define Pro... again
For professionals looking across a range of Apple gear - and Apple itself will tell you it sees products like the iPad Pro and Mac Pro as "complementary" - the picture is getting muddier, not clearer.
This isn't all bad. Who doesn't love choice? And the Apple of the last two decades is all about choice, as it slices every category into three or more options all designed for a different user or use case. Have small hands? The iPhone 13 mini or iPad mini is for you. On a budget? Look at the Macbook Air , iPad 9.7 , and iPhone SE .
It's smart, but Pro users who perhaps understood their go-to products by measures of horsepower must be getting a little confused.
They were thinking of buying the iPad Pro 11-inch but then noticed that the 10.9 iPad Air is just as powerful. They were thinking about the Mac Pro but then noticed the Mac Studio with a pair of M1 Maxes slammed together to make an insanely powerful M1 Ultra.
MacBook Pros and MacBooks run the same M1 chips and its variants. There are other clear differences in storage, ports, and screens that help define the MacBook Pro as a professional system over the Air, but the differences keep shrinking.
A little clarity wouldn't hurt
This is not a misstep or an Apple mistake worth apologizing over, but I think we could use some clarity.
Where, Apple, does the Apple Professional look? Are you offering her incremental upgrades, tiny, creek-sized differences, like a bit more performance, upgradeability, maybe LiDAR, and a slightly better camera or can she still expect a river of change between consumer and pro-level hardware?
I have no illusions about Apple ever conducting another once-in-lifetime roundtable to discuss misgivings and product futures. Mainly because Apple didn't change on that day. It had something to say, needed to reassure a key market, and found the canniest way of doing so.
Apple's in no need of that level of reflection and sharing, anyway, but it should communicate that it still understands the needs of the professional, knows they are special, and will build for them in a way consumers can scarcely imagine or afford.
The new-look Windows 365 is a dream for hybrid workers
Microsoft has announced a series of updates for Windows 365 that allow users to switch seamlessly between their local and cloud -based Windows 11 desktops.
The virtualization service will soon benefit from four additional features: Windows 365 Boot, Windows 365 App, Windows 365 Switch and Windows 365 Offline.
Broadly, the upgrades are designed to provide users with a simpler route into their cloud desktop, while also preserving functionality in scenarios in which an internet connection is unavailable.
Blurring the boundaries
Windows 365 allows users to stream a Windows 11 desktop to any of their devices, from any location. The goal is to open up a host of opportunities for businesses - especially those without virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) expertise - from a cost, administration and productivity perspective.
Instead of hosting the OS locally, Windows 365 streams in applications, data and settings from the cloud, effectively turning the user’s device into a thin client . The amount of available storage and compute depends on which of the twelve Cloud PC configurations their IT team has assigned them.
Although Microsoft says the service has attracted significant attention since launch, the latest updates will help refine the experience, by reducing the cognitive friction involved in switching from the local OS to the Windows 11 desktop in the cloud.
With Windows 365 Boot, for example, users can choose to launch directly into their Cloud PC at startup. In addition to speeding up the process of logging into the cloud desktop, Boot offers a number of security benefits, particular in BYOD scenarios.
Meanwhile, Windows 365 App provides easy access to the cloud desktop from the Windows 11 taskbar and Windows 365 Switch makes transitioning between desktops as simple as switching between regular windows.
The final new addition, Windows 365 Offline, will give users access to some elements of their cloud desktop when a connection is unavailable, or in the event of a service outage. However, Microsoft has remained tight-lipped about which specific resources will be available in offline mode.
Microsoft has not provided timelines for the rollout of the new features, but has promised more information soon.
Where next for Windows 365?
The Windows 365 announcement headlines today’s Windows Power the Future of Hybrid Work event , which Microsoft is using as a platform to launch a variety of upgrades designed to cater to the needs of this new era of work.
Ahead of the event, TechRadar Pro spoke with Wangui McKelvey, GM of Microsoft 365, and Aidan Marcuss, CVP Windows Device and App Experience, who explained the rationale behind the changes.
We were told that Microsoft is looking for ways to erase the traditional mental demarcations that separate what’s going on at a device versus cloud level, thereby enabling a level of flexibility previously unavailable to workers.
“Our requirements have changed in comparison to two years ago; the notion that you have a single daily driver machine has fundamentally changed. Everything about the way we work has changed,” said McKelvey.
“It’s important for us to meet customers where they are and anticipate where we think they are going to go.”
The ambition is not necessarily to develop a wholly cloud-based OS, but rather to blend together the experience such that users are unable to tell whether their apps and compute are coming from the cloud or their machine.
“It’s not about the reduction to a single local or cloud-based solution, it’s about having the choice of both and enabling additional scenarios,” said Marcuss.
“But we create so much complexity with choice, so it’s our job to both enable flexibility and land ready-made solutions for customers.”
Asked whether we might see a consumer-focused version of Windows 365 in future, given the flexibility and cost structures the service enables, McKelvey gave us a polite smile and took a moment to consider her response. “We’re thinking about all the opportunities we can enable with this technology. I’ll just leave it at that.”
Cloud spending boom shows no signs of slowing down
We already know cloud computing is one of the most important industries globally and today IDC has the data to prove it.
According to a new report from the analyst firm, spending on cloud storage and computing products, including dedicated and shared environments, rose by 13.5% year-over-year to $21.1 billion in the fourth quarter of 2021.
For the full year, cloud spending rose 8.8% over 2020 to a staggering $73.9 billion, while investment in non-cloud infrastructure rose 4.2% YoY to $59.6 billion.
The next big thing
Businesses and governments globally began to spend more profligately on cloud services over the past two years, spurred by the pandemic highlighting the importance of being connected remotely.
The big winners have been AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, all of which have seen revenue and profits increase substantially since the start of 2020.
And the trend shows no sign of stopping, according to IDC. Worldwide cloud infrastructure spending on shared and dedicated services is expected to reach almost 70% of the total by 2026.
While cloud services might appear to be magic to the end user, all of them rely on huge amounts of computing resources, located in faraway data centres, and fast broadband connections.
The full IDC report is worth reading for detailed insights into the breakdown of who spent what, on what, and where but the general takeaways are that spending was up and to the right in almost all cases.
That was true for almost all regions globally (besides Latin America) and across all types of services – and the same is expected as we get deeper into 2022.
AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud – plus their regional counterparts, such as Alibaba Cloud – are riding a rocket ship and the final destination still hasn't come into view.
