As a theoretical physicist who spends much of his day in front of computers writing code, I also sense that often times Apple portrays professional Mac users as people who edit video. Iām sure there are many Mac users among that group, but by the same token, thereās also many professional and even high-end Mac users who are very far from video editing.
In my own specific example, I rarely care about GPU core performance and even massively parallelized CPU core work doesnāt really do it for me. I can perhaps exploit two dozen or so cores efficiently, but after that thereās little gain. So while I love huge amounts of RAM, excellent mem b/w, and as much single-core performance as I can get, lots of other āproā aspects of Apple Silicon or Mac Studio/Pro are lost on me or those doing similar work in my department. Iām sure thereās plenty pro users who need that stuff, but itās also just as correct to acknowledge that to other pros, some of that stuff is of little to no relevance.
Overall though, I think pro Mac users are in a very good spot these days, at least in terms of hardware. Apple Silicon is really strong. Even if you think the Mac Pro is silly, you can safely ignore it and move on because the Mac Studio will likely offer all the goodies you want. And to those who like the Studio, but just find it overly expensive, the Mac mini does offer a budget-level desktop system that can absolutely be used for professional work. And in portable space things of course are looking as good as ever. Apple Silicon finally brings desktop level performance to the portable world without sacrificing battery life, weight, and noise to achieve it.
I would consider the only folks being left entirely out in the cold right now are those who indeed prefer AIOs. For years people were calling for a headless iMac (Pro) and now, with the Apple Silicon Mac Studio, we finally got all of that. Unfortunately, now itās the the high-end AIO crowd thatās stuck without appropriate hardware. Some might argue that crowd doesnāt exist. And although I was never big on the AIO myself, I wouldnāt dismiss that segment in Mac land. In fact Iād be tempted to argue that if Apple considers those couple ten thousand potential Mac Pro buyers relevant, they shouldnāt be dismissing what is likely an order of magnitude larger crowd whoād want something like a 27"+ iMac. The 24" iMac just doesnāt cut the mustard in that sense ā itās as if on the headless side Apple had only the Mac mini, but no Mac Studio (or Pro). But IMHO thatās pretty much it.
To be honest, when it comes to pro use, my biggest gripe right now is not Appleās Mac offerings. Iād claim theyāre as diverse and well balanced as perhaps ever. No, my gripe is with screens. Apple has a nice 5K panel, but itās over-engineered and the price tag is preposterous. Thereās one LG 5K display Iām aware of around ~$1200 and then perhaps thereās one or the other from some other manufacturer. But thatās it. What Iād really like to see is more selection among 27" 5K displays, and perhaps 32" 5K/8K displays. Thatās what Iām really missing in pro land these days.
) and only enough graphics to drive four 4K monitors. His current Intel Mac Proās PCI slots are all loaded up, but heās got no reason to move to Apple Silicon as the Intel Mac Pro just works, and even if he did move over, heād have less RAM, which would present him more difficulties loading sound libraries. Donāt even get me started on software devs with at least tens of thousands of files to juggle.